f^W 


LIBRARY 


CALif 

SAN 


1  DIEGO    J 


A  BOOK  OF 

PREFERENCES   IN 

LITERATURE 


A  BOOK  OF 

PREFERENCES  IN 
LITERATURE 

BY 

EUGENE  MASON 


NEW   YORK 

E.   P.   BUTTON   &   COMPANY 

681   FIFTH  AVENUE 
1016 


PRINTED  AT 

THE  BALL  ANT  YNE  PBESS 

LONDON 


TO 
M.  A.  M. 

ALL  SAINTS'  DAY  1913 


jEterna/ac  cum  Sanctit 
Tuii  in  gloria  numerari 


2033107 


CONTENTS 


M.  Anatole  France,  and  the  Complete 

Sceptic  18 

On  the  Short  Story,  and  Two  Modern 
Exemplars  (Mr.  Rudyard  Kiplinq 
AND  Guy  de  Maupassant)  41 

The  Poet  as  Artist    (Jos6-Marla.  de 

Heredia)  with  some  Translations      67 

The  Poet  as  Mystic  (Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats)       89 

Two    Christian    Poets    (Christina    G. 

Rossetti  and  Paul  Verlaine)  115 

A  Catholic  Poet    (Francis  Thompson 

and  his  Legend)  139 

Walter  Pater,  and  some    Phases  of 

Development  167 

An  Introduction  to  Wace's  "  Roman 

de  Brut  "  195 


IX 


FOREWORD 


rHE  scope  of  this  little  volume  is  sug- 
gested sufficiently,  I  think,  by  its 
title — "  A  Book  of  Preferences  in 
Literature."  The  essays  included  here  deal  tvith 
subjects  which,  for  one  reason  or  another,  are 
dear  to  the  mind  of  their  writer,  and  represent 
a  personal  choice  amongst  many  valued  books. 
Exclusion  from  these  pages  does  not  necessarily 
mean  that  such  absent  authors  are  less  congenial 
to  his  taste.  It  implies  simply  that  M.  Anatole 
France  and  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  amongst 
novelists,  Walter  Pater  amongst  essayists,  and 
Christina  Rossetti,  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats,  Heredia, 
and  Francis  Thompson  amongst  poets,  are 
peculiarly  grateful  to  his  temperament  and 
thought.  The  writers  named,  however  eminent, 
are  not  perhaps  of  the  supremest  genius.  It 
matters  little.  In  literature,  as  in  prayer,  the 
devotion  at  tim^s  will  be  addressed  to  the  saint 
rather  than  to  the  Deity,  and  yet  the  homage 
and  petition  may  gain  their  reward.  In  the 
11 


12  FOREWORD 

following  chapters  I  have  offered  my  duty  to 
Literature  through  the  persons  of  the  acolytes 
about  her  shrine.  I  trust — zvith  fearfulness — 
that  I  shall  be  forgiven.  Amongst  all  the 
characters  of  fiction  I  have  coveted  greatly  the 
role  of  Interpreter  in  the  House  Beautiful,  Where 
J  have  failed  in  my  aspiration,  it  is  the  com- 
mentator and  not  his  text  that  is  uninspired. 

E.  M. 


M.  ANATOLE  FRANCE,  AND 
THE  COMPLETE  SCEPTIC 


THAT  Flemish  monk  who  stated  he  had 
spent  his  most  uneheckered  hours  in 
a  nook  with  a  little  book,  obviously 
could  not  have  referred  to  the  yellow-covered 
volumes  of  M.  Anatole  France.  Even  had  he 
lived  four  or  five  hundred  years  later  he  would 
have  considered  those  books  as  more  suitable 
for  the  Abbey  of  Thelema  than  to  the  library 
of  the  Brothers  of  the  Common  Life.  I  am 
not  concerned  to  deny  that  they  do  contain 
matter  rendering  them  inconvenient  for  inclu- 
sion amongst  writings  of  a  devotional  character. 
If,  however,  they  are  not  meant  "to  make 
man  at  peace  with  death,"  as  was  the  "  Imita- 
tion "  of  ^  Kempis,  perhaps  they  may  perform 
the  yet  useful  function  of  keeping  him  at  peace 
with  life.  The  series  of  novels  and  essays 
for  which  M.  Anatole  France  is  responsible 
presents  a  well-considered  criticism  of  life 
under  a  style  which  is  a  perpetual  joy  and 
13 


14  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

astonishment  to  the  reader.  But  the  author 
of  these  books  is  greater  and  more  interesting 
than  his  works.  To  use  the  compliment  of 
the  poet,  "  What,  madam,  we  most  admire 
in  you  is — yourself."  He  is  greater  and  more 
interesting  than  they  because  at  a  critical 
moment  of  his  life  he  dared  to  rise  above 
their  teaching,  and,  like  St.  Paul,  to  dispose 
of  the  strict  and  formal  laws  of  logic  with  a 
"  Gk)d  forbid."  The  apostle  is  an  odd  and 
unexpected  exemplar  for  Anatole  France  to  take 
pattern  by,  and  the  circumstance  is  one  of 
those  little  ironies  which  should  be  dear  to 
his  sardonic  humour.  The  appearance  of  the 
smiling  epicurean  in  the  role  of  the  moralist ; 
the  dogmatism  manifested  by  the  preacher  of 
the  uncertainty  of  private  judgment ;  the 
fervid  political  sympathies  proclaimed  on 
platform  and  in  pamphlet  by  the  excursionist 
from  ivory  towers — such  contrasts  as  these 
are  a  very  rejoicing  spectacle,  and  add  salt 
and  savour  to  the  consideration  of  his  character 
and  work. 

M.  Anatole  France  was  born  on  April  16, 1844, 
and  has  just  completed  his  seventieth  year.  He 
was  bom,  appropriately  enough,  in  Paris,  the 
city  which  has  told  so  many  excellent  stories 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  16 

and  has  mocked  so  gaily  at  such  excellent 
creeds.  It  is  not  without  significance  that 
his  place  of  birth  is  the  arena  where  so  great 
a  number  of  the  intellectual  battles  of  Christen- 
dom have  been  waged  and  decided,  and  where 
the  cross  is  continually  rising  and  falling  above 
the  dome  of  the  Pantheon.  Renan — whom 
Anatole  France  would  own  as  master — was 
bom  in  Brittany.  Christianity,  therefore,  was 
in  the  fibres  of  his  heart,  although  he  could 
not  accept  its  theology.  Its  memories  echoed 
in  his  soul  like  the  bells  of  the  city  of  Ys, 
ringing  beneath  the  waters  of  the  sea.  The 
distance  between  Brittany  and  Paris  is  not  so 
great  as  the  difference  between  Renan  and 
France  in  the  fashion  they  look  back  upon 
the  religion  they  felt  constrained  to  abjure. 
Anatole  France  was  the  only  child  of  a  poor 
bookseller,  whose  shop  was  on  the  Quai 
Malaquais,  near  by  the  Seine,  within  sight  of 
the  Louvre,  tlie  Pont  Neuf,  the  towers  of  Notre 
Dame,  the  tourelles  of  the  Conciergerie,  and 
the  high-pitched  roof  of  the  Sainte  Chapelle. 
His  father  was  Noel  Thibault,  nicknamed 
"  Pere  France  "  by  the  comrades  of  his  regi- 
ment The  son,  in  turn,  took  the  jest  as  his 
pseudonym,  and  has  made  it  a  glory  of  modem 


16     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

French  literature.  Noel  Thibault  derived  from 
La  Vendee,  and — as  was  meet — was  both 
Catholic  and  Royalist.  His  wife  came  from 
Bruges-la-morte,  and  was  Catholic  too.  There 
never  was  an  author  more  personal  than 
Anatole  France,  nor  one  who  recurred  more 
willingly  to  the  scenes  of  his  childhood.  In  the 
loving  intimacy  of  his  treatment  of  such 
subjects  he  reminds  us  irresistibly  of  Lamb. 
The  memories  of  these  early  days  are  branded 
into  his  recollection.  They  occur  again  and  again 
with  the  regularity  of  motives  throughout  his 
work.  He  recalls  with  delight  those  quays 
on  the  Seine  where  the  bookstalls  form  an 
essential  part  of  the  landscape.  He  lingers 
gladly  near  the  river  which  by  day  mirrored 
the  sky,  and  by  night  (like  a  woman)  decked 
itself  with  jewels  and  gleaming  flowers.  In 
how  many  novels  does  his  father's  bookshop 
recur,  with  its  circle  of  writers  and  artists  and 
amateurs  discussing  everything  in  heaven 
and  earth,  and  in  other  places  less  reputable 
as  well !  Noticeable  above  all  are  the  content 
and  gladness  with  which  M.  France  speaks 
of  his  parents .  With  such  frequency  and  in  such 
touching  terms  does  the  great  writer  dwell  upon 
the  theme,  that  the  most  casual  reader  seems 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  17 

privileged  with  their  acquaintance.  Le  Pfere 
France,  to  liis  son's  remembrance,  was  an  old 
man,  older  in  weariness  than  in  years.  The 
retired  soldier  was  gentle,  and  a  little  sad,  and 
loved  to  talk  his  son  to  sleep  by  telling  over 
the  folk-tales  of  his  country.  But,  like  a  true 
Frenchman,  the  lad's  most  fragrant  recollections 
cling  about  the  memory  of  his  mother.  She 
appears  in  his  pages  active  and  gay,  singing 
cheerfully  as  she  busied  herself  upon  the 
duties  of  her  house.  She  had  the  soul  of  an 
artist,  though  the  opportunity  to  express  her- 
self was  denied,  and,  like  her  husband,  de< 
lighted  to  relate  stories  to  her  boy  ;  but  the 
stories  he  learned  from  her  hps  were  the  beauti- 
ful Christian  legends  opening  to  a  sensitive 
child  the  very  gate  of  dreams.  Near  her  side 
he  turned  over  the  Flemish  pictures  in  the 
great  family  Bible.  At  her  knee  he  read  in  a 
beautifully  illustrated  edition  of  the  Lives  of  the 
Saints.  Doubtless  it  was  owing  to  his  mother's 
influence  that  M.  France's  first  childish  am- 
bition was  to  become  a  saint,  just  as  the  normal 
lad  desires  the  career  of  a  sailor  or  a  mighty 
hunter.  Of  his  efforts  to  reproduce  in  a  modem 
household  the  life  of  an  early  ascetic  we  have 
a  very  entertaining  description.    Discourage- 


18     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

ment  has  been  ever  the  lot  of  those  of  whom 
the  world  is  not  worthy.     A  spirited  attempt 
to    revive    the   peculiar   mortification    of    St. 
Simeon   Stylites   on   the  top   of  the   kitchen 
pump   ended   abruptly,   owing  to   the   active 
measures     adopted     by     an     imsympathetic 
maid.    The  aspirant  to  sanctity  was  whipped 
and  put  to  bed  for  cutting  open  the  seat  of  a 
^air  to  make  himself  a  hair  shirt.    When  he 
threw  his  playthings  into  the  street,  his  father, 
not   so   perfected   by   counsels   of  perfection, 
merely  shut  the  window,  exclaiming  that  the 
child  obviously  was  an  idiot.     "  I  felt  both 
anger  and  shame  to  hear  such   an  opinion 
of  my  character.     But  I  consoled  myself  with 
the  thought  that  since  my  father  was  not  so 
advanced  in  holiness  as  myself,  he  would  not 
share  with  me  in  the  glories  of  the  blessed,  and  in 
this  reflection  I  found  a  rich  source  of  conso- 
lation."    Piety,  in  the  classical  sense,  is  an 
essential  feature  both  of  M.   France  and  of 
Charles  Lamb.    Piety,  in  the  Christian  meaning 
of  the  word,  is  scarcely  a  note  of  their  mature 
characters,  but  each  alike  asserts  almost  pas- 
sionately  the    fundamental    goodness    of   the 
child.     The  dream  of  sanctity  died  away  early 
in  the  case  of  M.  France.     One  scarcely  knows 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  19 

whether  to  laugh  or  cry  at  the  thought.  The 
dream  was  succeeded  by  other  ambitions,  and 
the  first  to  plant  the  seeds  of  such  imaginings 
were  members  of  his  family.  Intellectually 
Anatole  France  proceeds  neither  from  father 
nor  mother,  but  from  his  grandparents.  The 
former  may  have  endowed  him  with  his  instinct 
for  the  conte,  but  from  the  latter  he  derives  the 
habit  and  texture  of  his  mind.  His  grand- 
father was  a  veteran  of  Waterloo,  a  little 
jaunty  in  carriage,  and  a  diligent  student  of  the 
Oriental  scholar  Volney,  whose  famous  book, 
"  Les  Ruines,"  expoimds  the  history  of 
humanity  in  a  pompous  narrative,  exhibiting 
a  touching  faith  in  the  progress  of  the  human 
race.  The  grandson  shares  the  same  historical 
interests,  but  with  a  less  naive  confidence  in  the 
ultimate  perfection  of  our  species.  The  in- 
fluence of  his  grandmother  was  even  more 
pronoimced.  This  lady  was  neither  Catholic 
nor  Royalist,  but  frivolous  and  sceptical  ac- 
cording to  the  traditions  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  She  was  innocent  of  religion  as  a 
bird  ;  her  mind  was  moulded  in  the  school  of 
Voltaire,  and  she  made  no  secret  of  her  pre- 
dilections. She  mocked  gaily  at  the  seriousness 
and    sobriety    of    her    daughter-in-law,    and, 


20     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

undeceived  by  the  child's  precocious  piety, 
remarked,  with  assurance,  that  her  grandson 
wovdd  grow  a  very  different  man  to  his  father. 
The  uncanny  insight  of  her  prophecy,  and  its 
uncanny  measure  of  fulfilment,  almost  entitle  her 
to  a  place  amongst  the  major  prophets.  Anatole 
France  is  the  child  not  of  his  father  but  of 
his  grandmother.  If  the  hands  of  the  dead 
shape  our  characters  and  fashion  our  destinies, 
then  the  career  of  the  greatest  of  living  authors 
— amongst  all  its  conflicting  currents — was 
influenced  fundamentally  by  the  sceptical  old 
lady  who  sat  at  the  feet  of  Voltaire. 

The  poor  bookseller  determined,  at  any  cost, 
to  give  his  son  the  advantages  denied  to  him- 
self. To  ensure  that  the  lad  should  not  be 
defrauded  in  his  young  years  of  the  sweet 
food  of  academic  institution,  he  was  sent  to 
the  College  Stanislas,  there  to  make  his 
"  humanities."  The  College  Stanislas  was  an 
ecclesiastical  school.  This  had  its  advantages, 
for,  as  Lemaitre  points  out,  the  offices  of 
religion  help  to  keep  the  soul  tender  and  pure  ; 
and  should  faith  unfortvmately  leave  you  later 
in  life,  you  are  better  able  to  appreciate  its 
influence  on  others,  and  are  more  intelligent 
and  equitable  in  your  judgments.     It  was  a 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  21 

long  walk  to  class,  and  the  way  led  through 
the  picturesque  Latin  Quarter,  the  quiet  pro- 
vincial streets  about  St.  Sulpice,  and  so 
through  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  to  college. 
Many  and  many  a  picture  of  Parisian  life  was 
fastened  in  the  lad's  retentive  memory  during 
that  daily  journey.  The  schoolboy  made  no 
mark  in  his  studies.  Then,  as  always,  he  was 
the  artist  of  the  beautiful,  rather  than  the 
exact  and  painful  scholar.  In  one  or  two  of  his 
books  he  has  described  himself  before  his  desk, 
upon  the  bench,  his  eyes  filled  with  the  theory 
of  nymphs.  He  was  haunted  by  faultless 
faces,  arms  of  ivory,  and  white  tunics,  and 
his  ears  were  ravished  by  voices  sweeter  and 
more  tunable  than  the  most  enchanting  music. 
The  masters  of  the  College  Stanislas  grounded 
their  pupils  in  Christianity  and  the  classics.  In 
the  case  of  Anatole  France  Christianity  passed, 
but  his  love  of  the  classics  remained.  He  is  essen- 
tially Latin,  even  now — the  fine  flower  of  the 
Latin  genius.  The  German  culture,  so  close  to 
the  intellect  of  Ernest  Renan,  has  nothing  to 
say  to  his  disciple.  The  classics  he  loves  because 
they  taught  him  the  art  to  order  and  express 
his  thought.  They  gave  him  his  canons  of  judg- 
ment and  taste,  and  were  the  very  apocalypse 


22     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

of  beauty.  He  became  an  excellent — though 
not  impeccable — scholar  in  four  literatures,  but, 
excluding  Greek,  all  these  literatures  are  Latin. 
"I  have,"  he  says  somewhere,  "a  desperate 
attachment  to  Latin  studies.  Without  them 
the  grace  of  the  French  genius  would  be  gone. 
We  are  Latins,  and  the  milk  of  the  she-wolf  is 
the  best  part  of  our  blood." 

The  ambition  of  M.  France  was  to  be  a  writer, 
and  he  embarked  on  his  chosen  career  im- 
mediately on  leaving  college.  His  efforts  were 
interrupted  by  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War.  He  joined  the  regiment  with 
a  copy  of  Virgil  in  his  knapsack,  and  continued 
his  studies  throughout  the  disastrous  cam- 
paign. It  is  told  that  he  and  a  comrade  sat 
absorbed  over  their  book  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  cannon-balls  falling  in  the  Marne. 
It  will  not  be  forgotten  how  Brotteaux  peruses 
his  pocket  Lucretius,  however  inconvenient  the 
situation,  in  that  romance  of  the  Revolution 
entitled  "  Les  Dieux  ont  Soif."  The  whole 
of  Anatole  France's  work  is  a  web  of  memories 
and  personal  confidences.  The  war  ended, 
M.  France  resumed  his  profession  of  literature. 
He  published  two  volumes  of  verse,  and 
attached  himself  to  the  Parnassians,  a  school  of 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  23 

which  Leconte  de  Lisle  was  the  acknowledged 
prince.  It  is  obvious  that  so  personal  a  writer 
could  not  remain  permanently  devoted  to  a 
faith  whose  cardinal  dogma  was  the  repression 
of  any  display  of  emotion.  It  is  difficult  to 
conceive  Anatole  France  in  the  impassive  atti- 
tude of  a  Sioux  brave  at  the  stake.  Preoccu- 
pation with  beauty,  concern  with  form,  led  him 
to  imitate  the  rigorous  perfection  of  his  model. 
Personal  differences  with  the  master  quickened 
his  departure  from  the  camp.  Verlaine,  for 
a  period,  adorned  the  same  gallery,  with  a 
similar  incongruity. 

M.  France,  however,  is  not  essentially  a  poet. 
Few  poets  are.  His  true  gift  is  the  more 
flexible  and  pedestrian  gift  of  prose.  This 
he  was  quick  to  discover,  in  the  first  instance 
because  he  is  an  excellent  and  discerning  critic, 
and  secondly  by  reason  of  being  under  the 
painful  necessity  to  live.  The  distinguished 
editor  of  Le  Temps  persuaded  the  diffident 
scholar  to  contribute  articles  to  his  journal, 
articles  deahng  mainly  with  literary  and 
philosophical  subjects,  pleasantly  illuminated 
by  anecdotes  and  autobiographical  excursions. 
These  articles  have  been  collected  in  the  four 
volumes  of  the  "  Vie  Litteraire,"  and  to  the 


24     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

true  Anatolian  are  amongst  the  most  delightful 
portions  of  his  work,  to  be  read  and  re-read. 
"  The  kissed  mouth  never  loses  its  freshness." 
In  the  light  of  his  future  development  these 
little  essays  are  of  the  deepest  interest.  They 
express  the  views  of  a  philosophical  monk, 
belonging  by  heart  (it  is  M.  France's  own 
phrase)  to  some  Abbey  of  Thelema,  where  the 
rule  is  easy  and  the  obedience  light.  Possibly 
faith  may  not  overflow  the  measure,  but 
charity  certainly  abounds.  Indulgence  and 
tolerance  are  the  cardinal  virtues  of  the  Order. 
Its  professed  monks  are  excellent  citizens, 
because  they  are  profoundly  attached  to  the 
use  and  custom  of  their  times.  Since  the  wont 
of  the  majority  constitutes  human  morality, 
a  sceptic  is  your  perfect  citizen,  for  why  should 
he  agitate  against  a  law  he  has  no  hope  to 
improve  ?  The  sceptic  must  leave  martyrdom 
to  those  who,  unable  to  doubt,  have  in  their 
very  simplicity  the  only  excuse  of  their  ob- 
stinacy. There  is  even  some  impertinence  in 
piling  the  faggots  about  yourself  for  the  sake  of 
an  opinion.  Martyrs  have  no  sense  of  irony, 
and  this  is  their  unpardonable  sin,  for  without 
irony  the  world  is  but  a  wood  without  birds. 
Irony  is  the  gaiety  of  thought  and  the  wit  of 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  25 

wisdom.  Such  are  some  of  the  precepts  and 
counsels  bestrewn  with  a  liberal  hand  through 
the  pages  of  these  four  books  of  essays.  Their 
sweetness  would  be  positively  cloying  were 
not  the  writer  human,  and  his  theory  of  indul- 
gence liable  to  reach  its  limit,  sometimes  an 
unexpected  limit.  The  novels  of  Zola,  for 
instance,  are  treated  with  an  extreme  severity. 
It  is  declared  there  is  none  to  envy  his  dis- 
gusting notoriety,  and  with  an  imwonted 
burst  of  Scriptural  fervour  the  critic  adds  it 
were  good  for  that  man  if  he  had  never  been 
bom.  Somewhat  of  the  same  unforeseen 
lyricism  is  displayed  by  the  essayist  when  a 
copy  of  an  anti-militarist  novel  was  burnt 
publicly  by  a  chauvinist  colonel  before  his 
regiment  of  cavalry.  He  was  a  sage  indeed 
who  pleaded  that  your  enemy  should  be  en- 
treated as  if  one  day  he  may  become  your 
dearest  friend. 

M.  France  did  not  confine  himself  to 
journalism.  It  was  but  one  phase  of  the 
activity  of  a  man  whose  humour  it  is  to  pre- 
tend to  idleness.  He  pressed  steadily  forward 
with  that  wonderful^  series  of  short  stories  and 
novels  constituting  one  of  the  glories  of  modem 
France.    These  books  were  very  fragrant  and 


26    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

tender  at  first,  but  as  time  went  on  and  their 
author  dared  more  and  more  to  be  frankly 
himself,  they  developed  other  qualities  which 
proved  somewhat  disconcerting  to  his  early 
admirers.  In  a  day  when  artists  are  too 
frequently  but  faded  replicas  of  great  originals, 
this  desperate  insistence  on  individuality 
should  be  counted  to  him  for  righteousness. 
The  novels  are  not  impeccable,  on  the  contrary 
they  are  a  mine  of  faidts,  but  these  defects 
are  so  engaging  that  if  you  failed  to  appre- 
ciate the  books  for  their  excellences  the  chance 
is  you  would  do  so  for  their  failings.  Critics 
tell  us  that  they  are  but  poorly  constructed  ; 
and  when  we  find  one-seventh  of  a  whole 
volume  given  over  to  the  mere  description  of 
a  banquet,  we  must  agree,  however  ruefully. 
But  who  would  wish  the  talk  in  that 
Alexandrian  banqueting-hall,  with  its  bril- 
liance of  dialogue  and  its  confusion  of  philo- 
sophies, to  be  shortened  by  a  single  page  I 
Again,  it  may  be  urged  that  the  sensuous  is  but 
one  step  removed  from  the  sensual,  and  in 
the  case  of  M.  France  the  one  step  which  exists 
does  not  always  need  to  be  taken.  Neither  can 
it  be  denied  that  the  characters  informing  these 
romances  lack  somewhat  of  the  relief  and  sub- 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  27 

tlety  given  by  the  mightiest  creators  to  the  off- 
spring of  their  imagination.  It  matters  little. 
One  character,  and  that  the  most  entrancing,  is 
common  to  all  these  narratives,  and  it  is  Anatole 
France  himself.  Sometimes  his  is  the  function  of 
the  Greek  chorus.  More  often  he  appears  beneath 
the  most  trivial  disguise,  and  dissembles  under 
the  names  of  Nicias,  of  the  Abbe  Jerome 
Coignard,  of  Bergeret,  of  Brotteaux  des  Ilettes. 
The  reader  recognizes  him  by  his  silken  speech. 
The  hands  may  be  the  hands  of  Esau,  but  the 
voice  in  every  case  is  the  voice  of  Jacob.  The 
views  enunciated  by  such  characters  as  these 
are  not  austere.  The  philosophy  they  expound 
is  an  undiluted  epicureanism.  Their  scepti- 
cism is  the  scepticism  we  are  familiar  with 
in  the  essays  of  their  original  and  prototype. 
They  share  even  in  his  personal  feeUngs  and 
distastes.  One  or  two  are  bookmen  who  are 
perilously  near  to  becoming  bookworms.  This 
loves  cats,  and  this  other  has  an  imperfect  sym- 
pathy with  Jews. 

Then  to  the  smiling  Epicurean  in  his  ivory 
tower  came  the  angel  with  the  test.  A  certain 
captain,  of  Jewish  blood,  was  tried  for  treason, 
and  foimd  guilty.  The  great  majority  of  the 
French    nation,    including    most    of    Anatole 


28    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

France's  personal  friends,  approved  of  the 
finding  and  the  consequent  sentence.  A 
minority,  contemptible  in  numbers,  contended 
that  an  awful  wrong  had  been  done  to  an 
innocent  man,  and  moved  heaven  and  earth 
to  annul  the  judgment.  This  minority  in- 
cluded as  its  most  prominent  champion  that 
novelist  on  whom  M.  France  had  published  so 
caustic  a  criticism.  Neither  was  it  possible 
to  consider  the  captain  himself  as  exactly  a 
sympathetic  personage.  The  issues  were  very 
confused,  and  the  storm  raged  with  astounding 
violence.  If  ever  there  was  a  case  in  which 
the  complete  sceptic  and  convinced  Epicurean 
was  bound  by  principle  and  interest  alike  to 
remain  aloof  from  the  din  and  dust  of  the  battle 
it  surely  was  here.  Logically  he  was  com- 
pelled to  do  so,  for  how  should  he  attain  that 
truth  he  had  always  proclaimed  as  past  finding 
out !  M.  France  was  nobler  than  his  creed,  and 
adopted  a  distasteful  task  in  the  company  of 
distasteful  comrades,  with  enthusiasm.  Man 
does  not  live  by  denial  but  by  aflBrmation,  and 
he  realizes  himself  more  completely  through 
self-sacrifice  than  by  indulgence.  Though 
any  opinion  you  may  hold  is  probably  mis- 
taken, yet  you  must  act  upon  it  whatever  be 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  2» 

the  cost.  Better  to  affirm  and  be  wrong,  than 
deny  and  be  in  the  right. 

Probably  M.  France,  as  a  personal  matter,  was 
not  wildly  interested  in  the  fortunes  and 
misfortunes  of  Captain  Alfred  Dreyfus.  He 
paid  a  great  price  to  obtain  the  victim's  freedom, 
a  price  to  be  counted  over  in  popular  disfavour, 
in  loss  of  friends  and  of  that  leisure  so  dear  to 
a  scholar's  heart.  But  not  one  of  his  books 
shines  with  so  pure  a  lustre  as  the  conviction 
which  induced  him,  despite  all  logic,  to  range 
himself  upon  a  side  and  do  battle  for  an  idea, 
whether  that  idea  were  right  or  wrong. 

The  complete  sceptic,  once  having  failed, 
progressed  rapidly  along  the  road  of  imper- 
fection. His  ivory  tower  was  abandoned 
for  political  platforms.  The  comrades  of  that 
first  crusade  were  men  of  advanced  political 
opinions.  Politics  being  a  state  of  mind 
rather  than  a  creed,  it  was  natural  M.  France 
should  regard  their  views  with  sympathy. 
He  presently  made  them  his  own,  and  is  now 
a  convinced  Socialist.  It  would  be  an  im- 
pertinence to  criticize  the  doctrines  of  so  dis- 
tinguished an  advocate,  and  I  have  no  in- 
tention to  make  myself  ridiculous  by  so  doing. 
Very  possibly,  indeed,  he  is  quite  in  the  right. 


80    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

One  may  be  permitted,  however,  to  smile  at  the 
incongruity  of  M.  France's  appearance  in  the 
part  of  the  hot  gospeller,  walking  beneath  the 
red  flag  and  chanting  the  International  as 
lustily  as  he  may.  But  to  the  fervour  of  the 
proselyte  we  who  are  Londoners  are  indebted 
for  the  privilege  of  hearing  the  great  author 
speak  on  that  memorable  evening  when  he 
occupied  the  platform  of  the  Fabian  Society 
with  other  orators  only  less  eloquent  than 
himself;  and  the  audience  gathered  together 
on  that  occasion  will  not  easily  forget  the 
moment  when  M.  France  in  his  fraternal 
ardour  embraced  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  upon  the 
cheek. 

The  illustrious  evening  of  M.  France  is  a  very 
strenuous  period.  It  is  associated  with  battle- 
cries,  and  devoted  to  causes  and  an  ideal. 
It  seems  odd  to  remember  that  for  the  greater 
part  of  liis  life  the  author  of  the  phrase  "  Society 
is  founded  on  the  patience  of  the  poor  "  was 
regarded  as  a  mere  dilettante.  Indeed,  the 
reproach  is  levelled  yet  by  critics  who  feel  little 
enthusiasm  for  his  views.  We  must  admit 
there  is  much  in  these  writings  to  give  colour 
to  the  suggestion.  They  are  composed  and 
put  together  so  loosely  as  almost  to  require 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  81 

the  indulgence  that  is  the  privilege  of  the 
amateur.  They  repeat  themselves  continually. 
They  are  concerned  with  art  and  thought,  less 
as  a  passion  than  as  an  agreeable  pastime  to 
occupy  our  little  day.  The  interest  in  ideas 
manifested  in  every  book  of  the  long  series, 
nevertheless,  is  genuine  and  sincere.  They  may 
be  treated  with  too  much  display,  as  though 
they  were  only  a  handful  of  brightly  coloured 
beads,  but  behind  the  parade  M.  France  sits 
absorbed  as  Mr.  Wells  himself.  The  learning, 
moreover,  informing  these  books  is  very  real. 
It  is  worn  lightly  as  a  flower — ^too  lightly,  indeed. 
It  is  the  scholarship  of  a  poet  rather  than  that 
of  the  student,  and  seems  wide  rather  than 
deep  or  exact.  This  matters  nothing  if  the 
book  be  a  work  of  fiction.  More  is  not  required. 
The  case  is  only  serious  when  the  book  purports 
to  be  a  considered  study  of  history,  involving 
questions  of  grave  import.  An  imperfect  proof- 
reading, and  an  apparent  indifference  to 
accuracy  of  reference,  then  become  impardon- 
able  levity.  At  least  they  seemed  so  to  Andrew 
Lang.  M.  Anatole  France  took  a  less  austere 
view  of  the  moral  aspect  than  could  be  expected 
of  a  Scotsman.  Perhaps  he  was  biased.  He 
pleaded  for  indulgence  in  advance  by  telling  in 


32     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

his  preface  to  the  "  Vie  de  Jeanne  d'Arc  "  of  the 
fate  awaiting  the  inaccurate  writer.  "  During 
that  very  fifteenth  century  which  I  have  striven 
to  reclothe  in  flesh  in  these  pages,  a  certain 
demon  flourished,  named  Titivillus.  It  was 
his  pleasure  to  collect  the  omitted  letters 
and  misplaced  words  of  negligent  clerks  at 
their  daily  task,  and  to  carry  them  to  hell  in  his 
wallet  every  evening.  When  the  day  of  the 
death  of  each  careless  scribe  was  come,  and 
St.  Michael  weighed  his  soul  in  the  balance, 
then  Titivillus  hastened  forward  and  placed 
the  heavy  burden  of  his  sins  in  the  scale  of  his 
iniquities."  Such  eloquent  special  pleading 
would  have  touched  the  heart  of  any  reader 
except  that  of  a  brother  humorist,  carried 
beyond  his  usual  courtesy  by  an  uncontrollable 
indignation. 

The  omnivorous  reading  and  wide  learning 
of  M.  France  find  a  congenial  vehicle  for  em- 
ployment in  the  novel.  In  a  vivid  metaphor 
he  once  compared  the  scholar  with  an  Oriental 
eater  of  hashish.  Both  live  in  a  fume  of 
dreams,  and — he  declared — printed  matter  is 
the  opium  of  the  West.  As  we  turn  the  pages 
of  his  books,  and  think  for  a  little  of  what  we 
have  read,  the  truth  of  the  figure  comes  home 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  33 

to  us.  They  possess  the  supreme  gift  of 
suggestiveness,  of  evocation,  and  the  dreams 
of  the  past  steal  from  their  chapters  like  wreaths 
of  smoke  from  the  opium  pipe.  History,  and 
the  pleasant  byways  of  history,  seem  to  be 
his  favourite  study.  The  obsession  of  what 
is  gone  lies  upon  him,  and  no  period  of  the 
world's  history  is  alien  to  his  curiosity.  The 
century  he  regards  with  the  deepest  intellectual 
interest  is  that  in  which  Christ  was  bom  in 
Syria.  The  dawning  of  Christianity,  and  the 
relations  of  its  Founder  with  the  characters 
He  met  upon  His  road,  are  approached  with 
the  most  alert  concern.  Pilate,  who  had 
forgotten  the  Man  he  crucified;  Mary  Magdalene, 
who  loved  her  Master  with  a  fervour  deemed 
barely  respectable  by  the  Roman  matron  ; 
St.  Paul,  the  destined  conduit  through  which 
the  new  religion  was  to  flow — these  form 
material  for  some  of  Anatole  France's  most 
arresting  and  characteristic  narratives.  Chris- 
tianity absorbs  him  despite  his  repulsion.  It  is 
Christianity,  again,  that  takes  him  to  Egypt, 
and  we  assist  at  that  strange  and  bewildering 
kaleidoscope  where  the  hermit  and  the  desert 
are  brought  into  troubling  contact  with  the 
learned    and    beautiful    courtesan,    and    the 

c 


34     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

libraries  and  philosophies  of  Alexandria  make 
"  Thais  "  half  museum  and  half  pandemonium. 
Whatever  be  the  defects  of  its  planning,  the 
present  writer  must  consider  "  Thais  "  to  be  its 
author's  masterpiece,  if  only  because  his 
essential  gift  of  irony  finds  there  its  most 
complete  expression.  M.  Faguet,  however, 
gives  pride  of  place  to  the  eighteenth-century 
novel  of  modish  manners  and  pagan  wisdom 
entitled  "  La  Rotisserie  de  la  Reine  Pedauque  " 
— a  queen  with  webbed  fingers  to  her  hand 
like  some  aquatic  bird.  Other  critics,  equally 
distinguished,  allot  the  palm  to  the  Benjamin 
of  his  age,  that  fine  romance  of  the  Revolution, 
"  Les  Dieux  ont  Soif ."  Should  a  referendum 
be  taken,  the  popular  vote  doubtless  would 
fall  on  his  modem  evocation  of  Florence, 
"  Le  Lys  Rouge,"  with  its  new  Decameron 
set  amongst  the  formal  gardens  of  the  city  of  the 
red  lilies — a  Decameron  of  criticism  rather 
than  of  story-telling,  and  of  visits  to  holy  places, 
where  the  neurotic  heart  sets  itself  to  devise 
perverse  things.  All  these  novels  are  remark- 
able in  their  various  ways.  The  master  falters 
only  when  he  emulates  the  dismal  foreseeings  of 
Mr.  Wells.  His  speculations  on  the  future 
seem  largely  derivative  from  the  English  writer, 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  85 

and  the  mediaevalist  in  him  is  distinctly  to  be 
preferred  to  the  prophet. 

The  lover  of  beauty  is  driven  by  necessity 
to  take  refuge  from  the  banahties  of  to-day  in 
some  dream  of  the  past.    Time  has  winnowed 
the  vulgarities  of  yesterday  from  the  threshing- 
floor  with  his  fan.    The  residue  is  pure  wheat. 
The   poetry   of  distance   softens  the   harsher 
features  of  the  landscape  with  a  purple  haze. 
Anatole    France,    by    temperament    and    by 
philosophy,  was  bom  to  experience  its  siren 
seductions.    He  had  ever  taught  that  in  the 
flux  of  things  memory  alone  is  lasting,  and 
that  our  life  turns  inevitably  to  what  is  gone. 
His  novels  are  but  doors  of  escape  opening 
on   cities   of  brighter  colour  and   on  fresher 
streams.    With    an    insatiable    curiosity,    M. 
France  laboured  to  acquire  any  knowledge  that 
would  bring  this  fairer  world  more  closely  to 
his  eyes.    He  is  a  tireless  student  of  history 
and  biography — perhaps  even  more  of  those 
memoirs  and  diaries  which  show  humanity  in 
its  dressing-gown.    Pictures  and  prints  help  to 
visualize  and  re-create  his  scenes,  and  certain 
chapters  in  his  books  are  but  transcriptions 
in  prose  of  the  coloiu'-print  upon  his  desk. 
The  illusion  of  reality  is  made  more  vivid  by 


36    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

M.  France's  pleasant  habit  of  telling  over  again 
many  half-forgotten  legends  of  the  past.  These 
stories  come  to  us  with  an  added  richness  by 
passing  through  the  successive  strata  of  so 
manifold  a  culture.  That  irony,  which  is  his 
most  personal  quality,  transforms  the  ndiveU 
of  the  original  narrative.  Such  stories  as  these 
are  usually  drawn  from  mediaeval  sources. 
"  Our  Lady's  Tumbler,"  for  example — surely 
one  of  the  most  appealing  and  suggestive 
of  the  legends  of  the  Middle  Ages — is  preserved 
to  us  by  the  piety  of  Gaston  Paris  and  of 
another  scholar  in  a  volume  of  "  Romania." 
"  The  Surety,"  again,  is  derived  from  a  great 
collection  of  the  Miracles  of  Our  Lady,  trans- 
lated from  the  Latin  into  fluent  French  verse 
by  Gautier  de  Coinci,  a  monk  of  Soissons,  in 
the  thirteenth  century.  "  The  Boast  of 
Oliver  "  comes  from  the  cycle  of  the  Charle- 
magne romances,  with  pleasing  additions  by 
a  little  master  of  the  seventeenth  century.  But, 
indeed,  nearly  the  whole  of  the  exquisite 
"  Puits  de  Sainte  Claire  "  may  be  considered 
as  taken,  in  substance  or  essence,  from  French 
and  Italian  sources  of  the  Renaissance  or  the 
Moyen-dge.  Even  when  the  precise  original  of 
some  of  these  narratives  is  unknown  to  the 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  87 

present  writer — in  consequence,  perhaps,  of 
limited  leisure — it  is  possible  to  identify  a 
variant.  I  am  unacquainted  with  the  source 
of  that  delectable  anecdote  (enlivening  the 
pages  of  a  book  of  essays  in  no  need  of  relief 
or  illustration)  telling  the  reason  which  in- 
duced a  Roman  lady  to  pray  daily  in  public 
to  the  gods  for  the  life  of  the  vilest  of  the 
emperors.  Some  reader  may  be  more  fortunate. 
But  a  variant  is  to  hand,  taken  from  a  collec- 
tion of  Latin  stories  extracted  from  preachers' 
manuals  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries  to  be  used  as  illustrations  in  sermons, 
and  quoted  by  Mr.  G.  G.  Coulton  in  his  wonder- 
ful volume,  "  A  Medieval  Garner."  "  A  certain 
abbot  gave  his  monks  three  dishes  to  their 
dinner,  wherefore  they  said  ;  '  This  man  giveth 
us  but  sparingly  ;  let  us  pray  God  that  he  may 
soon  die.'  And  so  it  was  ;  for  within  a  brief 
while,  for  that  or  some  other  cause,  he  died. 
Then  came  another  abbot  who  gave  them  but 
two  dishes  ;  whereat  they  were  sore  wroth  and 
grieved,  saying  :  '  Now  must  we  pray  all  the 
more  (since  one  dish  hath  been  taken  from  us) 
that  the  Lord  take  away  this  man's  life.' 
At  length  he  died  ;  and  the  third  gave  them 
but  one.    Then  were  the  monks  moved  to  in- 


38    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

dignation,  and  said  :  '  This  fellow  is  worst  of  all, 
for  he  will  slay  us  with  hunger  ;  let  us  pray 
God  for  his  speedy  death.'  Then  said  one 
monk  :  '  Nay,  but  I  pray  God  He  may  give  him 
a  long  life  and  keep  him  among  us.'  The 
others,  marvelling,  asked  him  why  he  spake 
thus  ;  and  he  :  '  The  first  (I  see)  was  evil,  the 
second  worse,  and  this  man  worst  of  all.  Yet 
I  fear  that,  when  he  is  dead,  another  may  come 
who  will  famish  us  outright.'  For  as  the  pro- 
verb hath  it :  '  Selde  cometh  the  latter  the 
better.'  "  Certainly  M.  France — like  other 
great  writers — ^takes  his  goods  where  he  may 
find  them. 

The  work  we  have  examined  in  this  paper 
is  supple  and  various.  It  deals  with  many 
matters  in  divers  ways.  It  is  interested  in 
ideas.  It  observes  modern  life  closely  and 
curiously,  but  is  equally  at  ease  in  the  cities  of 
refuge  of  the  past.  This  work,  moreover, 
despite  its  variety,  is  no  mere  collection  of 
separate  publications,  but  is  held  together 
by  a  central  unity  of  its  own.  The  cover 
and  stitching,  binding  many  detached  chapters 
into  one  organic  whole,  are  provided  partly  by 
the  interest  excited  by  their  author's  per- 
sonality, partly  by  a  beauty  of  writing  amount- 


ANATOLE  FRANCE  39 

ing  almost  to  a  miracle,  and  above  all  by  a 
criticism  of  life,  represented  in  different  books 
by  varying  facets,  but  always  consistent  with 
a  central  conception  of  things.  In  a  sense 
all  M.  Anatole  France's  work  might  be  in- 
cluded under  the  common  title  of  Books  of 
Pity  and  of  Irony.  There  is  no  text  from 
which  he  preaches  more  willingly  than  from 
these  two  words,  which  run  almost  like  a 
refrain  through  his  pages.  It  occurs  in 
"  Crainquebille,  et  plusieurs  autres  Recits 
Profitables  "  :  "  He  felt  much  pity  for  men, 
scarcely  counting  them  as  reasonable  beings  ; 
their  blunders,  when  not  cruel,  seemed  amusing, 
and  caused  him  to  smile."  It  recurs  in  his 
Florentine  novel :  "  Let  us  give  to  men  for 
witnesses  and  as  judges.  Irony  and  Pity." 
Tlie  theme  is  developed  and  explained  in  his 
volume  of  opinions,  "  Le  Jardin  d'Epicure  "  : 
"  Irony  and  Pity  are  two  excellent  counsellors  ; 
the  smihng  face  of  one  makes  Ufe  a  pleasant 
thing  ;  the  tearful  eyes  of  the  other  make  it 
sacred  also.  The  Irony  I  invoke  is  not  cruel, 
and  rails  neither  at  love  nor  beauty.  She  is 
gentle  and  well-disposed  to  all ;  anger  lades 
before  her  smile,  and  in  her  school  we  learn 
to  laugh  at  folly,  which,  without  her  teaching, 


40     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

we  might  have  the  weakness  to  hate."  The 
text  is  expounded  through  a  long  and  brilhant 
series  of  books,  and  these  illustrations  may 
almost  be  considered  the  coie  of  their  writer's 
genius.  It  is  probable  M.  France  has  no 
exalted  views  of  man's  destiny,  and  knows  very 
little  of  whence  he  derives,  or  the  bourne  to 
which  he  goes.  With  a  poet  of  his  own  country 
he  sees  we  are  "  all  under  sentence  of  death, 
with  a  sort  of  indefinite  reprieve,"  and  watches 
our  strange  gyrations  on-this  sleeping  volcano 
with  humour  and  with  pity.  Consequently  he 
attaches  much  importance  to  the  lesser  virtues 
— to  cheerfulness,  to  courtesy,  and  fair  dealing 
between  men — and,  just  as  the  complete 
sceptic  was  forced  by  circumstances  to  believe 
in  his  own  infallibility,  so,  by  one  of  those 
little  ironies  dear  to  him,  the  smiling  Epicurean 
becomes  a  moralist  in  liis  own  despite. 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY,  AND 
TWO  MODERN  EXEMPLARS 


IN  one  of  those  volumes  of  opinions  which 
are  more  entrancing  than  most  romances, 
Monsieur  Anatole  France  narrates  an 
anecdote  somewhat  in  the  following  fashion. 
Many,  many  years  ago  an  Eastern  satrap 
came  to  the  throne,  possessed  by  a  most  un- 
usual and  conscientious  desire  for  the  welfare 
of  his  subjects.  In  pursuance  of  this  laudable 
object  he  called  before  him  the  wise  men  and 
scholars  of  his  kingdom,  and  desired  them 
to  furnish  him  with  a  History  of  Mankind. 
These  gentlemen  formed  themselves  into  an 
Academy,  appointed  a  permanent  secretary, 
and  embarked  zealously  upon  their  task. 
At  the  end  of  twenty-five  years  they  appeared 
before  their  Sultan,  bearing  with  them  upon 
a  train  of  camels  the  precious  history,  in  five 
hundred  forbidding  volumes.  Daunted  by 
this  formidable  array  of  books,  the  king  ex- 
plained to  the  deputation  the  importance  of 
41 


42     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

his  duties  and  the  brevity  of  Hfe,  and  desired 
the  scholars  to  reduce  their  wisdom  into  a 
more  reasonable  compass.  Fifteen  years  later 
the  academicians  yet  remaining  alive  returned, 
bringing  their  sheaves  with  them — in  fifty 
stout  volumes.  The  monarch  burst  into  tears, 
exclaiming  that  evidently  it  was  written  he 
should  never  digest  the  history  of  mankind. 
The  Academy  therefore  resimied  its  labours, 
and  at  the  close  of  another  five  years  the  sole 
survivor — a  permanent  secretary  on  crutches — 
brought  the  result  to  the  palace,  upon  an  ass, 
in  one  thick  octavo  volume.  But  the  king 
was  at  the  last  gasp,  and  turned  his  face  to 
the  wall  as  the  student  entered  the  room. 
Then  an  inspiration  seized  the  permanent 
secretary.  Throwing  his  leather-bound  history 
to  the  floor,  he  hobbled  to  the  bed,  and  cried, 
"  Sire,  the  history  of  men  may  be  resumed  in 
three  words.  They  are  bom ;  they  suffer ; 
and  they  die." 

No  one,  I  presume,  will  dispute  that  the 
moral  of  this  delectable  apologue  has  the 
additional  merit  of  being  absolutely  true. 
The  length  of  the  road  and  the  agreeableness 
of  the  prospect  may  vary  for  each  one  of  us, 
but  the  journey's  end  inevitably  is  the  same. 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  48 

One  may  be  carried  to  his  long  rest  in  a  pauper's 
hearse,  whilst  his  neighbour  goes  in  a  pompous 
procession,  with  weeping  relatives  ;  but  to 
the  same  home  they  both  go,  and  to  the  like 
complexion  they  come  at  last.  All  the  more 
honour,  then,  to  our  pathetic  and  transitory 
race  since  it  has  set  itself  with  a  sort  of  desperate 
and  indomitable  cheerfulness  to  make  the 
best  of  an  "  indefinite  reprieve."  The  line  of 
its  march  may  be  traced  by  the  ruins  of  the 
temples  builded  to  enshrine  its  dreams.  On 
either  side  of  the  path  the  wilderness  has  been 
husbanded  to  blossom  like  a  rose.  The  chambers 
where  man  could  but  lodge  for  a  night,  he  has 
ceiled  with  cedar  and  painted  with  vermilion  ; 
and  at  evening,  after  the  hard  day's  toilsome 
march,  he  has  gathered  round  the  camp  fire 
and  cheated  his  weariness  with  tales  and 
laughter — surely  two  of  the  best  gifts  of  the 
grudging  gods.  In  the  warmth  of  that  pleasant 
blaze,  listening  to  the  saga  men  of  his  tribe, 
he  forgot  the  dark  sky  above  him,  and  enjoyed 
the  illusion  of  happiness,  till  the  caravan  was 
struck  again  with  the  dawn. 

The  stories  told  at  twihght  about  these 
blazing  fires  were,  at  the  beginning,  mere 
flimsy  anecdotes.     The  narrator  did  not  know 


44     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

himself  for  an  artist.  He  related  the  ad- 
ventures of  a  day,  the  fear  lurking  in  the  night, 
the  way  in  which  an  unit  was  added  to  the 
number  of  his  women.  These  anecdotes  he 
told  in  as  straightforward  a  fashion  as  was 
consonant  with  his  desire  to  impress  the 
listeners  aroimd  him.  The  braggart  was  the 
first  story-teller,  and  in  a  sense  the  liar  may 
be  considered  as  the  earliest  artist.  The 
boaster  was  not  content  with  the  mean  baldness 
of  the  literal  truth.  Probably  it  added  nothing 
to  his  glory.  He  touched  it  up,  and  proving 
the  inferiority  of  fact  to  fiction,  became  the 
first  self-conscious  artist.  "  Gab,"  discovered 
thus  about  a  wandering  camp  fire,  remained  for 
long  the  amiable  weakness  of  our  race.  Readers 
of  mediseval  literature  will  remember  how 
Charlemagne  and  his  Paladins  spent  the  hour 
after  supper  in  the  chamber  allotted  them 
by  the  Emperor  of  Constantinople.  They 
must  recall  with  what  strange  "  gabs  "  the 
Paladins  bragged  one  against  the  other,  and 
the  dire  results  which  befell  through  their 
betrayal  by  the  liidden  spy.  Frequenters 
assure  us  that  at  times  they  may  be  heard 
even  yet  in  the  smoking-rooms  of  to-day. 
The  artist,  having  learned  to  select  and  to 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  45 

arrange  his  material,  having  freed  himself 
from  the  bondage  of  fact,  speedily  realized 
the  advantage  of  imputing  liis  noble  deeds 
to  some  fictitious  character.  Such  a  hero 
aroused  less  jealousy,  and  was  not  exposed 
to  the  risk  of  being  found  out.  Prowess  in 
hunting  and  in  tribal  war,  good  fortune  in 
love,  and  personal  relation  with  the  gods  accord- 
ingly were  ascribed  to  dead  heroes,  or  to  some 
others  who  never  had  an  actual  existence. 
Presently  it  would  happen  that  one  such  hero, 
for  this  reason  or  that,  aroused  more  interest 
and  obtained  greater  favour  in  the  hearts  of 
the  auditors  than  his  fellows.  About  this 
favoured  personality  was  formed  an  accretion 
of  tales.  He  stood  draped  in  a  web  of  legend. 
These  legends  grew  gradually  to  an  organic 
whole,  and  the  romance  superseded  the  anec- 
dote. Ballads  crystalUzed  into  the  epic,  and 
old  blind  Homer  was  bom. 

It  must  seem  strange  that  man  who  went 
forth  to  his  labour  from  sunrise  to  evening, 
whose  years  were  so  few  and  swift,  was  not 
content  with  stories  appropriate  to  his  leisure. 
He  might  sit  at  his  ease,  hearkening  to  the 
minstrel,  for  but  one  quick  hour  between 
twilight   and   darkness.    One   short   story,    a 


46  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

single  ballad,  would  fill  his  scanty  leisure  to 
the  brim,  and  then  to  sleep.  Yet  the  history 
of  the  imaginative  literature  of  the  world  is 
the  preference  of  our  race  for  the  serial  as  against 
the  anecdote.  Man  chose  deliberately  to 
take  the  memory  of  some  hero  to  bed,  and 
to  resume  his  adventures  about  the  camp 
fire  just  where  they  were  interrupted  the  evening 
before.  It  mattered  little  to  the  listener  that 
the  chances  were  great  he  would  never  live  to 
hear  the  conclusion  of  the  tale.  That  was 
but  one  adventure  the  more.  Obedient  to 
the  imperious  demand,  minstrel  and  saga  man 
did  wonderful  feats  of  memory.  The  skald 
held  the  viking  from  weariness  on  the  swan's 
path  by  recital  of  the  sombre  and  dramatic 
epics  of  the  North.  The  scarlet-clad  minstrel 
stood  before  a  gay  company  of  lords  and  ladies, 
seated  on  the  steps  of  the  perron,  telling 
over  the  interminable  romances  of  chivalry  ; 
whilst  above  him  the  olives  whispered,  and 
near  by  the  broad  stretches  of  the  Rhone 
flowed  swiftly  to  the  sea.  In  Eastern  bazaars 
the  professional  story-teller,  stick  in  hand, 
related  with  ceaseless  and  emphatic  gesture 
some  marvellous  invention  concerning  afrit  and 
djinn.    Writing  eased  the  strain  for  a  time, 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  47 

and  made  an  abnormal  memory  less  a  necessity 
of  the  craft  than  a  helpful  talent.  But  with 
the  discovery  of  the  printing-press  Othello's 
occupation  was  gone.  Glee  man,  minstrel, 
and  story-teller  became  rogues  and  vagabonds 
by  Act  of  Parliament,  instead  of  honoured 
guests  in  the  halls  of  the  great  and  the  meeting 
places  of  the  mean.  The  short  story  simk 
deeper  in  the  general  discredit.  It  was  aware 
of  the  disfavour  in  which  it  was  held,  and  tried 
hard  to  hide  its  identity.  It  banded  itself 
together,  masking  under  the  guise  of  a  long, 
connected  narrative.  The  shifts  it  was  driven  to 
are  amusing.  Consider  the  "  Arabian  Nights," 
and  the  framework  laboriously  provided  to 
give  the  illusion  of  an  organic  whole.  Can 
the  frail  wicker-work  be  held  worthy  of  so 
resourceful  a  little  baggage  as  Scheherazade, 
the  princess  of  fiction-mongers  I  Boccaccio 
found  a  somewhat  more  convenient  door  of 
escape  for  his  "  Decameron."  The  pressure  of 
the  outside  world,  the  horror  of  the  plague, 
the  imminence  of  death,  indeed,  does  something 
to  knit  these  stories  together.  That  garden 
is  certainly  more  sunny,  those  lips  are  certainly 
more  instant  in  love  and  laughter,  because 
of  the  horror  waiting  just  without  the  gate. 


48     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

If  we  put  the  "  Morte  D'Arthur  "  aside,  Chaucer 
is  the  one  instance  of  an  approximately  success- 
ful solution  of  an  insoluble  problem.  The 
architectural  device  adopted  by  the  writer 
of  the  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  does  much  to  in- 
corporate into  a  single  mansion  a  series  of 
absolutely  unconnected  chambers.  This  con- 
vention provides  a  group  of  character-studies 
of  such  humanity,  engaged  in  an  occupation 
so  typical  of  its  age,  that  the  stories  put  with 
more  or  less  propriety  into  the  mouths  of  the 
pilgrims  are  sufficiently  in  unity  with  them- 
selves to  be  considered  by  the  indulgent  as 
one  narrative.  But  the  tide  ran  strongly  in 
the  direction  of  the  novel  all  the  same.  To 
the  interminable  romances  of  chivalry  succeeded 
the  interminable  sentimentalities  of  a  later 
century.  These  lachrymose  excursions  into 
the  province  of  the  heart  and  the  sensibilities 
were  followed  in  turn  by  novels  of  picaresque 
adventure.  The  heels  of  vagabondage  were 
kibed  by  a  grim  and  grimy  realism.  Realism 
gave  way  to  psychological  studies  of  a  singular 
dullness — all  in  many  volumes  of  closely 
printed  type.  The  hour  of  the  short  story 
— which  went  so  lightly  and  laughed  so  gaily — 
was  over  indeed. 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  49 

It  is  but  fair  to  admit  that  the  short  story 
in  France  has  never  been  treated  so  shabbily 
as  across  the  Channel.    It  fell  upon  evil  days, 
but  not  into  the  indigence  and  dishonour  it 
suffered  in   England.     The  gift  of  narrative, 
like  the  gift  of  sculpture,  is  a  French  tradition. 
The  Middle  Ages  in  France  were  a  riot  of  short 
stories.    The   land   was   as   thick  with   them 
as  a  country  hedge  with  roses.    The  taste  for 
such  narratives   endured   there   side   by   side 
with  the  tyranny  of  the  novel.     Any  failure  of 
interest  was  but  a  comparative  failure,  and 
not  in  the  superlative  degree  as  here.    It  is 
curious  to  speculate  on  the  causes  of  our  dis- 
taste.    Perhaps  it  is  an  indication  of  the  lack 
of  a  certain  alertness  of  mind.    Possibly  such 
mental  lethargy  may  be  less  pronounced  in 
our  neighbours.     It  certainly  seems  that  the 
average  EngUsh  reader  finds  no  continuity  of 
interest  in  a  volume  of  tales.     Such  a  "  mis- 
cellany   of    inventions "    is    a    succession    of 
mental  jolts  and  jars.     He  seems  to  be  changing 
his  carriage  at  every  local  station,  instead  of 
settling   down   cosily   for   the   length   of   his 
journey,  and  he  grows  weary  of  the  discom- 
fort.   Since  we  have  no  natural  instinct  for 
the  conte,  it  is  the  more  creditable  that  we 

D 


60     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

shared   with   France   in   the   revival   making 
the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  so 
good  and  stimulating  a  period  for  the  writer 
of  the   short   story.    The   French   artist,   for 
his  part,  was  born  free  ;  but  with  a  great  sum 
we  obtained  this  freedom.    And  here  it  may  be 
desirable  to  state  precisely  what  is  meant  in 
this   paper   by   the   term    "  short   story."     A 
great  deal  of  critical  energy  has  been  wasted 
in  seeking  out  a  definition.     It  was  sought  to 
provide  a  formula  that  would  define  the  boun- 
daries of  the  short  story  with  the  mathematical 
strictness  of  a  sonnet.    It  must  not  be  an 
anecdote ;    it   should   not   be   a   little   novel. 
Walls  were  built  about  it,  and  beyond  certain 
limits  it  was  dared  to  stray.     For  my  part 
creeds  are  peculiar  to  theology,  and  I  am  not 
anxious    to    impose    them    elsewhere.    Wiser 
words  have  not  been  written  on  the  subject  than 
some  by  Mr.  Wells,  whose  special  authority 
will  be  appreciated  by  all.    Not  only  has  he 
spelt  w-i-n-d-e-r,  but  he  has  given  a  personal 
application  to  the  object-lesson  by  cleaning 
it  better  than  was  possible  for  anyone  else. 
"  I  refuse  altogether  to  recognize  any  hard-and- 
fast  type  for  the  short  story,  any  more  than 
I  admit  any  limitation  upon  the  liberties  of  the 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  51 

small  picture.  The  short  story  is  a  fiction 
that  may  be  read  in  something  under  an  hour, 
and  so  that  it  is  moving  and  delightful  it  does 
not  matter  whether  it  is  as  '  trivial '  as  a 
Japanese  print  of  insects  seen  closely  between 
grass  stems,  or  as  spacious  as  the  prospect  of 
the  plain  of  Italy  from  Monte  Mottarone.  It 
does  not  matter  whether  it  is  human  or  in- 
human, or  whether  it  leaves  you  thinking 
deeply  or  radiantly  but  superficiaUy  pleased. 
Some  things  are  more  easily  done  as  short 
stories  than  others  and  more  abundantly 
done,  but  one  of  the  many  pleasures  of  short 
story  writing  is  to  achieve  the  impossible." 

The  excursion  in  fiction  which  could  be  read 
aloud  in  something  imder  an  hour  flourished 
exceedingly  towards  the  end  of  the  last  century, 
both  in  England  and  France.  A  group  of 
writers  of  the  highest  brilliance  redeemed 
the  reproach  into  which  the  art  had  fallen, 
and  worked  marvels  with  their  material. 
The  entertainment  provided  by  these  artists 
was  of  a  very  various  order.  They  were  all 
things  to  all  men.  Not  possessing  a  scrupulous 
conscience,  they  perpetrated  the  anecdote 
and  the  minor  novel  with  gaiety.  They  were 
trivial,  or  grandiose,  or  squalid  as  they  pleased. 


52     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Sometimes  their  readers  laughed  with  them  ; 
at  others  they  were  impertinent  enough  to 
laugh  at  their  readers.  Their  narratives  ranged 
from  the  familiar  prospect  without  our  windows 
to  the  landscape  separated  from  us  by  the 
terrifying  thickness  of  the  world.  The 
characters  moving  through  these  tales  would 
be  trite  as  our  neighbour,  or  exotic  as  tropical 
fauna.  But  whether  these  writers  broke 
the  ten  commandments  of  the  critics,  or  paid 
tithe  of  mint  and  anise  and  cummin  to  their 
injunctions,  at  least  they  produced  works  of 
art.  Their  tales  must  have  been  as  pleasant 
to  write  as  we  find  them  to  read.  It  seems 
impossible  that  much  of  their  work  will  not 
remain  as  a  permanent  contribution  to  the 
treasure-house  of  fiction.  Some  are  gone  to 
their  well-earned  rest ;  others,  happily,  are 
with  us  to-day.  Since  it  is  more  convenient  to 
speak  of  the  general  character  of  such  work 
under  particular  instances,  I  may  be  permitted 
to  dwell  for  a  while  on  some  of  its  prominent 
features,  as  exemplified  in  the  stories  of  two 
of  its  greatest  masters,  Guy  de  Maupassant 
and  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling. 

Guy  de  Maupassant  had  two  great  advantages 
as    a    novelist.    He    derived    from    that    old 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  53 

France  which  has  told  so  many  stories,  and 
told  them  so  well,  and  he  was  the  literary 
apprentice  of  Gustave  Flaubert.  Counsels  of 
perfection  urged  by  Flaubert  were  put  into 
painful  practice  by  his  disciple.  For  ten  years 
Maupassant  laboured  to  acquire  a  style  and  to 
develop  his  originality — mainly  in  office  hours 
and  on  Government  paper — imder  the  severe 
tuition  of  his  mentor.  He  was  taught  to  see 
with  his  eyes,  and  not,  as  most  people  do,  with 
their  ears,  as  their  fathers  have  told  them. 
The  result  of  the  training  became  apparent  when 
his  first  story  was  printed,  for  "  Boule  de  Suif  " 
was  admittedly  a  triumph.  From  that  period 
Maupassant  published  three  masterpieces  a 
year  with  regularity.  Above  all,  it  was  from 
the  older  writer  Maupassant  obtained  that 
fatal  theory  of  impersonal  literature  which 
has  proved  so  fond  a  delusion  to  so  many 
authors.  The  creed  was  one  peculiarly  grateful 
to  Maupassant.  He  embarked,  with  cheerful- 
ness, on  lawsuits  to  prevent  his  portrait  adorn- 
ing his  books,  and  removed  all  literary  merit 
from  his  private  correspondence  lest  it  should 
be  published.  He  loved  to  think  he  gave 
nothing  of  himself  to  the  public.  He  pathe- 
tically believed  that  his  works  were  a  mirror 


54     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

reflecting  all  the  world,  with  the  sole  exception 
of  their  author.  It  is  amazing  that  so  observant 
a  man  could  prove  so  apt  in  self-deception. 
Of  course  the  exact  opposite  is  true.  Bits  of 
himself,  his  flesh  and  clothing,  stick  to  every 
one  of  Maupassant's  novels.  His  stories  are 
set  amidst  his  familiar  Normandy  landscape  ; 
their  heroes  are  the  peasants  he  knew,  and  their 
very  subjects  are  drawn  largely  from  actual 
happenings  which  once  gave  scandal  to  the 
neighbourhood.  The  crude  and  bitter  philo- 
sophy of  his  characters  is  quickly  recognized 
as  that  of  their  creator.  A  contempt  for 
humanity  overbrims  the  measure.  An  artist's 
work  is  always  a  kind  of  signature,  sometimes 
with  a  flourish  beneath.  These  stories  shudder 
with  Maupassant's  fear  of  death,  and  are 
built  on  the  very  hallucinations  which  caused 
him  to  spend  the  last  eighteen  months  of  his 
life  a  lunatic  in  an  asylum.  For  in  spite  of 
the  exuberant  gaieties  of  his  youth,  and  the 
brilliant  successes  of  his  manhood,  the  shadow 
of  Maupassant's  terrible  end  must  always  cling 
about  his  memory  like  a  pall.  He  will  ever 
remain  a  tragic  warning  against  burning  the 
candle  at — not  two,  but  half  a  dozen  ends  at 
once.    You  may  become  a  celebrated  writer, 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  55 

or  an  incessant  traveller,  or  a  popular  athlete, 
or  a  well-groomed  man  about  town  ;  but  if  you 
attempt  to  combine  all  these  conflicting  per- 
sonalities in  one  single  being,  the  result  will 
prove  disastrous.  Maupassant  made  the  effort, 
and  died  under  restraint,  not  having  completed 
his  forty-third  year. 

After  all,  that  old  France  proved  a  better 
friend  to  Maupassant  than  did  the  mentor 
who,  both  by  precept  and  example,  urged 
him  with  blows  along  the  path  of  perfection. 
It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  the 
assistance  he  derived  from  the  little  masters 
of  his  country.  Their  many  and  excellent 
short  stories,  written  through  the  course  of 
centuries,  are  a  manifestation  of  the  national 
character.  They  express  the  tradition  of 
the  race.  The  dead  hands  of  these  writers 
form  and  mould  their  successors,  and  to  depart 
from  their  path  is  to  inflict  a  grievous  wrong, 
not  only  on  them,  but  also  on  yourself.  The 
story  writers  of  old  France  were  of  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men.  Gentle  and  simple,  rich 
and  poor,  monk  and  troubadour  alike  were 
counted  in  their  guild.  But  certain  gifts 
they  had  in  common,  by  right  of  birth.  They 
had  the  gifts  of  clearness,  of  measure,  and  of 


56     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

sobriety.    They  were  also  gay.    At  times  they 
might  be  devout,  or  serious,  or  impassioned 
in  their  contemplation  of  beauty,  but  as  a  rule 
their  feet  were  rooted  in  the  earth — the  gross 
and  gracious   earth  of  France.    Maupassant, 
of  course,  did  not  possess  all  these  qualities. 
If  so  he  would  have  been  a  portent  rather 
than   an   artist.     It  would   be   affectation  to 
deny  that  in  poetry  and  grace  he  was  excelled 
by  Daudet.    But  with  certain  of  their  virtues 
he  was  richly  endowed.     No  modern  novelist, 
for  instance,  conducted  his  narrative  with  such 
economy,  or  obtained  his  effects  with  more 
clarity    and     simplicity.      He     also     laughed 
easily  and  loudly,  and  was  not  much  perturbed 
though  the  fastidious  hesitated  to  join  in  his 
ferocious  merriment.    "  La  Maison  Tellier  "  and 
"  Les  Sceurs  Rondoli  "  are  little  masterpieces  of 
humour,  but  it  is  unfortunate  the  reader  should 
ask  himself  whether  he  does  well  to  be  amused, 
even  whilst  the  laughter  is  in  his  mouth.    It 
must  be  admitted  there  is  some  difficulty  in 
recommending  Maupassant  for  general  perusal, 
without  reservation.    He  had  but  one  subject, 
and  that  an  improper  one.     In  this  he  resembles 
certain  earlier  writers  of  his  country.    They, 
however,  are  considered  in  the  bulk  with  other 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  57 

novelists  who  bring  cleaner  qualities  into  their 
narratives,  and  thus  the  whole  mass  is  leavened. 
Perhaps  it  is  safer  to  deal  with  Maupassant 
in  a  similar  fashion. 

In  addition  to  those  qualities  which  may  be 
regarded  as  his  by  heritage,  Maupassant  brought 
to  the  short  story  certain  characteristics  of 
his  own.  He  could  laugh  in  actual  life  and 
in  print,  and  did  so  heartily.  He  was  equally 
thorough  and  uncompromising  in  his  pessimism, 
and  consequently  his  books  are  full  of  the 
most  violent  effects  of  light  and  shade.  I  do  not 
call  Maupassant  a  pessimist,  particularly  because 
he  considered  life  not  worth  living.  Such  a 
philosophy  is  explicit  in  certain  Scriptural 
books  the  orthodox  believe  to  be  given  by 
inspiration  of  God.  Neither  do  I  reproach 
him  because  he  looked  upon  man  as  swayed 
mainly  by  his  desires  and  appetites,  and  saw 
few  of  our  species  with  an  aureole.  A  man 
who  denies  facts  is  not  an  optimis.t  but  a  lunatic. 
The  bleak  pessimism  blowing  through  Mau- 
passant's pages  like  an  east  wind  is  due  to  his 
conception  of  man  as  a  mere  animal,  without 
soul  or  spirit.  To  him,  as  to  another,  man 
is  only  the  saddest  of  all  the  beasts  of  the  field. 
He  studied  the  human  animal  altogether  in 


58     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

his  appetites,  never  in  his  aspirations,  which 
apparently  he  found  some  difficulty  in  recog- 
nizing. The  result  of  this  reduction  of  man 
to  half  a  dozen  mean  passions,  and  of  woman 
to  one,  was  an  excessive  simplification  which 
enabled  Maupassant  to  achieve  immediate 
effects  of  a  startling  character,  but  which  in  the 
long  run  may  do  harm  to  his  reputation.  As 
works  of  art  his  narratives  are  flawless.  Possibly 
they  will  prove  less  rich  and  stimulating  than 
some  others,  technically  not  so  perfect,  but 
written  by  men  of  wider  culture  and  deeper 
thought,  and  informed  by  a  nobler  philosophy. 
Turn  from  the  narratives  of  Guy  de  Mau- 
passant to  those  of  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling, 
and  you  recognize  at  once  the  advantages  of 
a  tradition.  The  French  master  is  a  classic 
largely  because  the  way  in  which  he  walks 
was  made  ready  to  his  feet.  Scores  of  short 
story  writers — some  with  famous  names,  but 
others  whose  obscurity  is  lighted  only 
by  their  work — engineered  and  made  easy 
that  road.  Mr.  Kipling  had  no  such  moral 
support.  English  letters  are  surprisingly  bare 
of  the  short  story.  Most  of  our  greater  novelists 
show  no  inclination  to  essay  the  adventure, 
and  their  navy  consists  mainly  of  Dreadnoughts. 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  59 

It  is  unreasonable,  under  such  circumstances, 
to  expect  Mr.  Kipling  to  prove  the  perfect 
artist.  He  is  the  pioneer,  with  a  rough,  un- 
charted country  to  explore.  Should  he  grope 
a  little,  or  fumble  occasionally,  it  is  just  because 
he  has  to  find  his  way  alone  in  the  dark.  If 
he  irritates  at  times  by  a  mannerism  that  seems 
crude  and  omniscient,  we  must  remember  there 
is  nothing  to  prune  and  restrain  his  excess  of 
individuality.  We  should  not  dwell  lovingly 
on  the  faults  of  his  work,  but  rather  appre- 
ciate the  essential  and  virile  genius  that 
carried  him  far  upon  so  difficult  and  perilous 
a  journey. 

The  note  of  Mr.  Kipling's  prose  is  romantic 
rather  than  classical,  and  this  may  be  necessi- 
tated by  the  nature  of  his  subjects.  It  is  difficult 
to  be  frigid  and  correct  when  dealing  with 
the  East.  Maupassant,  the  classic,  never  went 
far  afield.  I  recall  but  one  story  ("  Chali  ")  in 
which  he  adventures  on  ground  Mr.  Kipling 
has  made  peculiarly  his  own.  He  might  have 
excused  himself  by  quoting  the  author  of  the 
"  Imitation  "  :  "  Wherever  thou  mayest  go  canst 
thou  behold  more  than  the  elements,  earth 
and  sky  and  water,  for  of  these  are  all  things 
made  !  "    Maupassant's  restraint  has  not  been 


60    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

shared  by  his  fellows.  They  seem,  indeed, 
to  have  parcelled  out  the  world  amongst  them. 
Sir  Gilbert  Parker  has  laid  a  hand  on  our  Lady 
of  the  Snows,  and  finds  to  his  cost  that  she 
permits  no  divided  worship.  Mr.  Conrad,  by 
divine  right,  is  the  Rajah  of  the  Malay  Archi- 
pelago. Pierre  Loti,  by  his  very  business  in 
deep  waters,  is  equally  at  home  with  the 
mousmie,  all  sash  and  reverences,  the  Tahitian 
maiden  wreathed  with  flowers,  and  the  hideous 
negress  with  her  shaven  head.  The  province 
of  Mr.  Kipling  is  India.  It  is  so  to-day,  and 
has  been  since  he  "  made  his  astonishing  advent 
with  a  series  of  little  blue-grey  books,  whose 
covers  opened  like  window  shutters  to  reveal 
the  dusty  sun-glare  and  blazing  colours  of  the 
East."  Mr.  Kipling's  stories  seem  only  to 
move  and  have  their  being  on  the  soil  of  India — 
India  and  the  homeland  he  loves  better  still. 
The  virtue  passes  out  of  him  when  he  steps 
outside  his  chosen  province  and  her  peoples. 
America  especially  is  fatal  to  his  talent,  and 
his  allegorical  talking  horses  and  cumber- 
some machinery  of  the  railway  yard  inspire 
the  reader  with  consternation.  His  best  and 
most  enduring  pages  are  not  clammy  with  the 
fogs  of  the  Newfoimdland  banks,  nor  elaborate 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  61 

with  descriptions  of  the  evisceration  of  the 
cod  caught  in  those  waters.  The  tinkle  of 
the  Bengah  dancing  girl's  sitar  is  infinitely 
more  pleasant  to  the  ear  than  the  whistling  of 
those  engines  in  which  he  has  taken,  on  occasion, 
so  overwhelming  an  interest.  India  restores 
Mr.  Kipling  to  himself.  It  is  a  matter  to 
marvel  over  how  much  of  that  country  is 
epitomized  in  his  books.  Indeed,  these  books 
are  rather  a  cinematograph  before  which  we 
sit,  than  novels  we  read,  and  a  cinematograph 
much  more  wonderful  than  the  rather  limited 
machine  with  which  we  are  all  familiar,  since 
it  reproduces  not  only  the  shape  and  move- 
ment, but  the  very  colours  and  odour  and 
speech  of  life.  India  is  brought  before  us, 
not  perhaps  with  greater  fullness  of  know- 
ledge, but  more  vividly  than  by  any  other 
writer — ^the  sights  and  the  sounds  and  the 
smells  of  her,  her  welter  of  creeds  and  castes, 
her  temples  and  cities,  the  Way  of  Buddha 
and  the  Grand  Trimk  Road.  These  pages 
are  crowded  with  as  picturesque  and  motley 
a  throng  as  any  novelist  can  show — Eurasians 
and  the  governing  classes,  the  three  musketeers, 
the  yellow  and  wrinkled  Buddhist  lama,  and 
the  burly  Afghan  horse  dealer,  his  beard  dyed 


62     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

scarlet  with  lime.  Such  scenes  and  characters 
as  these  are  to  be  foimd  both  in  Mr.  Kipling's 
novels  and  in  his  "  miscellanies  of  inventions." 
It  would  seem  that  their  writer  is  unlikely  now  to 
produce  that  masterpiece  of  sustained  narrative 
we  all  hoped  to  receive  from  him,  and  must  be 
content  to  reign  supreme  in  the  more  restricted 
area  of  the  short  story.  After  all  it  is  a  suffi- 
cient distinction  for  an  overweening  ambition. 
When  you  have  written  such  moving  and  vivid 
narratives  as  "  Without  Benefit  of  Clergy," 
"  The  Incarnation  of  Krishna  Mulvaney,"  and 
"  The  Man  Who  Would  be  King  " — to  name 
but  three  amongst  many,  almost  at  haphazard — 
it  should  be  easy  to  hear  little  critics  hint  that 
"  Kim,"  although  a  very  delightful  performance, 
lacks  a  central  unity,  and  is  less  a  novel  than 
a  series  of  brilliant  and  disconnected  episodes. 

Mr.  KipUng's  love  of  England  is  greater 
even  than  his  passion  for  India.  With  Mau- 
passant he  has  the  genius  of  patriotism,  and 
like  the  gifted  Frenchman  sought  to  express 
his  devotion  in  the  terms  of  his  art.  Maupassant, 
a  realist  of  his  time  and  day,  was  driven  to 
write  poignant  tales  of  the  great  disaster  of 
modem  France.  Mr.  Kipling  is  more  fortunate. 
A  romantic  writer,  of  wider  imagination,  he 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  63 

derived  his  inspiration  from  the  glorious  past. 
"Puck  of  Pook's  Hill"  and  "Rewards  and 
Fairies  "  are  not  so  much  a  sequence  of  stories, 
set  against  a  homely  background  of  Pevensey 
meadows,  as  a  panorama  of  England,  and  of  the 
breeds  which  went  to  the  making  of  the  English. 
To  those  who  are  in  any  degree  possessed  by 
the  passion  of  the  past  such  a  theme  must  be 
of  the  highest  interest.  We  look  back  at  the 
seething  pot  into  which  every  component  of 
our  race  was  flung,  and  watch  the  shaping 
of  a  nation.  Briton,  Roman,  Saxon,  Dane, 
Norman — each  contributed  some  quality  or 
defect  of  muscle  and  brain  and  character, 
making  the  modern  Englishman,  for  good  or 
evil,  what  he  is.  Our  forefathers  live  again 
in  oiu:  sins  and  our  virtues,  as  we  in  theirs, 
for,  as  an  illiterate  lady  of  my  acquaintance 
once  remarked,  "  I  am  as  I  am,  and  I  can't  be  no 
ammer."  The  very  observances  of  our  modern 
Christianity  would  not  be  what  they  are  were 
it  not  for  the  gods  who  paled  before  a  brighter 
hope.  We  call  our  days  even  now  after  the 
names  of  deities  fallen  upon  evil  times.  Eng- 
land is  indeed  a  paUmpsest  of  various  writings 
and  surpassing  interest.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that   Mr.   Kipling  expresses  his   appreciation 


64     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

of  this  fact  so  frequently  by  means  of  children. 
Mr.  Kipling  is  boy-rid,  and  some  of  his  readers 
are  weary  of  perpetual  boy.  The  boy  is  a 
veritable  obsession  with  his  creator,  and  a  very 
fly  in  the  precious  ointment.  But,  boy-rid 
or  not,  Mr.  Kipling's  books,  at  least,  are  an 
enthusiastic  recognition  of  the  imity  of  the 
race,  and  in  this  patriotic  love  of  country  he 
treads  common  ground  with  a  novelist  with 
whom  he  would  seem  to  have  little  in  common, 
save  a  genius  for  the  composition  of  the  short 
story. 

Has  the  short  story,  of  which  we  have  wit- 
nessed the  glorious  resurrection,  come  to  stay  ? 
It  flourished  once  before,  but  fell  upon  evil 
days  ;  may  it  not  be  so  again  !  So  far  as  France 
is  concerned,  there  seems  every  hope  the  conte 
will  endure  with  her  Uterature.  A  country 
which  has  produced  so  fertile  and  lusty  a  crop 
is  unUkely  to  become  waste  and  barren  at  this 
period  of  her  history.  We  should  as  soon 
expect  the  vine  and  wheat  to  fail  from  her  yards 
and  barns.  Her  masters  of  imaginative  litera- 
ture are  famous  not  only  as  writers  of  the 
orthodox  romance,  but  of  the  "  minor  novel  " 
as  well.  In  England  the  position  is  different, 
and  the  question  cannot  be  answered  to  our 


ON  THE  SHORT  STORY  65 

wish  with  the  same  assurance.  The  tradition 
of  the  short  story  has  never  taken  a  grip  of 
our  literature.  It  has  seemed  aUen  to  the 
genius  of  the  race.  The  great  Enghsh  noveUsts, 
almost  with  one  consent,  ignore  the  Cinderella 
of  their  art.  Their  short  stories  were  brought 
forth  with  a  shamefaced  air,  as  if  apologizing 
for  the  production  of  such  frail  and  plaintive 
bantlings.  Of  recent  years  there  has  been  a 
revival  of  interest  in  Cinderella.  The  most 
famous  authors  of  oiu:  time  have  written  the 
short  story,  and  worn  no  air  of  condescension. 
Stevenson,  for  example,  composed  specimens 
considered  by  competent  judges  to  be  the  finest 
in  the  language  Mr.  Hardy,  Mr.  Kipling, 
Mr.  Wells — and  I  pass  by  others — publish  in 
our  very  day  narratives  of  no  great  length 
which  exhibit  to  perfection  the  form  and 
pressure  of  their  mind  and  genius.  These 
men  have  no  tradition  to  follow.  Never 
was  there  such  a  lack  of  canon  and  article  to 
guide  their  steps.  They,  and  such  as  they, 
are  painfully  building  the  road  the  Uttle  masters 
of  to-morrow  must  tread.  Perchance  these 
pioneers  may  find  none  coming  after  to  put 
spade  in  the  pit  they  commenced  to  dig.  Even 
so  their  work  will  not  be  wasted.     It  must 


66     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

remain  as  a  protest  and  as  a  call.  But  to 
the  wish  and  hope  of  every  lover  of  the  conte 
other  builders  will  follow,  learning  and  selecting 
from  the  example  of  those  who  went  before, 
so  that  the  road  may  be  carried  on,  and  become 
a  witness  to  our  national  character,  and  an 
expression  of  the  traditions  of  the  race. 


THE    POET    AS    ARTIST 
JOSE-MARIA  DE  HEREDIA 


THERE  are  certain  persons  who  consider 
the  name  of  an  artist  to  be  an  index 
to  his  character  and  personality.  They 
deny,  for  instance,  that  anyone  of  the  name  of 
Jones  can  be  a  painter  of  pictures.  They  affirm 
that  Miss  Marie  CoreUi  must  necessarily  be  a 
mistress  of  romantic  fiction.  Is  it  not  sufficient 
glory  to  possess  either  the  sounding  name  or 
the  indubitable  talent,  and  why  should  one 
amongst  the  children  of  men  be  so  favoured 
as  to  be  the  proud  possessor  of  both?  It 
would  be  equally  reasonable  to  require  of  a 
poet  not  only  that  he  should  write  his  verses,' 
but  also  that  he  should  look  his  role — which 
is  manifestly  absurd.  Occasionally,  however, 
the  absurd  actually  happens.  The  most  dis- 
tinguished of  living  French  critics  tells  that 
when  a  lad  at  class  the  name  of  a  minor  lumi- 
nary of  the  literary  Pleiades — Ponthus  de 
Thyard — haimted  his  memory.  He  reasoned 
67 


68  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

that  an  author  endowed  by  Providence  with 
so  musical  a  patronymic  must  in  consequence 
write  verses  of  a  beauty  beyond  the  reach  of 
his  fellows.  M.  Jules  Lemaitre  remarks  that 
when  at  last  he  lighted  on  the  actual  poems 
of  Ponthus  de  Thyard  his  deception  was  great 
and  his  fall  very  grievous.  Disillusioned, 
he  still  cherished  an  affection  for  his  old  love, 
only  it  was  rather  for  the  noble  name  than 
for  the  tinkling  verses.  But  what  Ponthus 
de  Thyard  was  for  the  eminent  critic  in  the 
days  of  his  youth,  all  that,  and  more,  Jose- 
Maria  de  Heredia  became  to  the  years  of  his 
manhood.  A  name  so  noble  that  it  streamed 
like  a  flag  and  was  blazoned  as  a  banner,  but 
with  the  added  lustre  that  the  author's  sonnets 
were  as  coloured  as  his  name,  and  were  the 
culmination  in  literature  of  a  heroic  and  ad- 
venturous ancestry.  "  Heredia,"  he  cries, 
in  the  words  of  the  enthusiastic  Gautier,  "  I 
love  thee  because  thou  bearest  a  name  exotic 
and  sonorous,  and  because  thy  verses  are 
wrought  with  all  the  pomps  of  heraldry." 
The  impossible,  you  see,  had  really  happened. 
By  the  irony  of  circumstance  several  of 
the  most  distinguished  poets  of  modern  France 
have  not  been  French  by  birth.    Leconte  de 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  69 

Lisle,  for  example — the  master  at  whose  feet 
Heredia  sat,  and  at  whose  suggestion  his  fugitive 
verses  were  collected — ^was  a  Creole.  Heredia 
may  be  reproached  with  having  robbed  Spain 
of  a  poet,  for  he  was  bom  at  Cuba  in  1842 
of  a  Spanish  father,  and  traced  his  ancestry 
direct  from  one  of  those  conquerors  of  the 
New  World  whose  epic  deeds  he  commemorated 
in  such  picturesque  and  sonorous  lines.  His 
ancestors,  indeed,  were  of  those  who  sailed 
with  Cortez  and  assisted  the  second  Columbus 
in  the  founding  of  Carthagena  in  the  Indies. 
Students  of  modern  French  poetry  will  not 
need  to  be  reminded  of  the  glowing  sonnets 
which  he  consecrated  to  their  triumphs.  The 
poet's  mother  came  of  a  Norman  family,  but 
Heredia  was  really  less  French  than  Rossetti 
(with  whose  work  his  own  has  so  much  in 
common)  was  English  ;  for  at  least  Rossetti, 
if  of  aUen  blood,  was  bom  in  England,  whilst 
Heredia  was  a  Frenchman  but  by  adoption 
and  grace.  All  the  poet's  childhood  was 
passed  amidst  the  enchanted  landscape  of  his 
beautiful  island  ;  and  in  early  manhood,  whilst 
studying  law  and  theology  at  Havana,  it 
was  beneath  orange-trees  and  near  by  a  fountain 
that   he  perused  his  favourite  authors.     His 


70    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

boyhood,  however,  was  spent  at  Senlis  in  France; 
and  following  upon  the  University  of  Havana, 
his  education  was  completed  in  Paris,  where 
he  afterwards  remained.  In  Paris,  naturally 
enough,  he  drifted  towards  literature,  and 
formed  one  of  that  group  of  young  men,  nick- 
named Parnassians,  whose  ideal  of  poetry 
was  so  severely  impersonal  that  they  crushed 
down  any  expression  of  emotion  with  the 
triumphant  query,  "  Is  the  Venus  of  Milo 
flesh  or  marble  ?  "  Of  this  set  M.  Anatole 
France,  in  the  delightful  causerie  on  Paul 
Verlaine  reprinted  in  the  third  series  of  "La 
Vie  Litt^raire,"  gives  a  vivid  picture.  I  may 
extract  from  that  article  the  portion  referring 
to  Heredia  :  "  Alone,  or  almost  alone,  of  our 
group  M.  Jos6-Maria  de  Heredia,  although 
cheated  of  a  large  portion  of  the  treasures  of 
his  ancestors,  the  Conquistadores,  dressed 
as  the  young  gentleman,  and  smoked  excellent 
cigars.  His  ties  were  brilliant  as  his  sonnets, 
but  it  was  of  the  sonnets  only  that  we  were 
envious,  for  we  held  in  sincere  contempt  the 
gifts  of  fortune."  But  whilst  the  Parnassians, 
one  by  one,  appealed  to  the  neglect  of  the 
public,  and  to  the  flail  of  the  critic,  with  modest 
volumes  of  verse,  Heredia  alone,  wrapt  in  the 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  71 

pride  of  tliose  dead  Conquistadores,  scorned 
to  appear  in  the  booth,  and  was  content  to 
remain  unpubHshed — and  famous.  For  close 
on  thirty  years  his  sonnets  passed  from  hand  to 
hand  in  manuscript,  were  doled  forth  by  imits 
in  anthologies,  or  occasionally,  by  a  gracious 
concession,  appeared  in  force  in  the  lordly 
columns  of  the  Rexme  des  Deux  Mondes.  In 
fact  the  very  process  which  piqued  the  curiosity 
of  the  amateur  in  the  work  of  Dante  Rossetti 
was  exactly  paralleled  over  an  even  more 
extended  period  of  time.  In  1893,  at  the 
mature  age  of  fifty,  M.  de  Heredia  was  pleased 
to  gather  his  neglected  foundlings  together. 
He  incorporated  with  the  sonnets  already 
printed  many  others  then  in  manuscript,  and 
under  considerable  pressure  at  last  published 
"  Les  Trophees,"  his  single  book  of  verse.  The 
success  of  "  Les  Trophies  "  was  immediate  and 
miraculous,  and  some  thirteen  editions  of  a 
volume  consisting  mainly  of  sonnets  appeared, 
I  beheve,  in  less  than  nine  months.  Certainly 
my  own  copy,  which  bears  the  date  1893,  is 
marked  as  being  of  the  tenth  edition.  I  say 
consisting  mainly  of  sonnets  because  it  should 
be  mentioned  that  three  mediaeval  Spanish 
romances  and  a  poem  in  heroic  couplets  are 


72    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

included  in  "  Les  Trophees,"  but  these  exercises 
in  an  unfamiliar  medium  do  not  permit  us  to 
believe  that  their  author  could  cast  a  statue 
as  bravely  as  he  carved  cherry-stones.  For, 
as  is  made  clear  in  a  letter  printed  by  Mr. 
Edmimd  Gosse,  in  the  mathematical  strictness 
of  the  sonnet  Heredia  saw  the  finest  of  fixed 
poetic  forms,  one  demanding  by  its  very  brevity 
and  difficulty  a  conscience  in  the  execution 
and  a  concentration  of  thought  stimulating 
in  the  highest  degree  to  the  artist ;  and  it  was 
on  the  sonnet's  scanty  plot  that  his  muse  foimd 
her  most  congenial  haunt.  The  sonnet  repaid 
his  devotion.  Rather  more  than  one  hundred 
carried  him  to  the  Academy. 

I  believe  the  public  considers  the  sonnet 
a  very  hard  boiled  egg  at  best.  Despite  the 
fact  of  Heredia's  popular  success  its  appeal 
is  mainly  to  the  artist.  There  is  scarcely  a 
poet  of  mark  who  has  not  put  his  fortune  to 
the  touch ;  but  the  nymph  is  capricious. 
Some  of  the  very  greatest  have  wooed  her 
without  success,  "  as  an  eunuch  embraceth 
a  virgin,  and  sigheth."  It  is  really  surprising 
why  their  sonnets  should  be  so  bad,  and  doubt- 
less these  eminent  writers  were  more  bewildered 
than  anybody  else.    On  the  other  hand,  men 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  78 

of  far  less  essential  poetic  quality  have  written 
excellent  sonnets.  The  strictness  of  the  form 
proved  neither  shackles  nor  hindrance  to  them. 
It  served  rather  the  purpose  of  a  woman's 
corsets,  and  they  wore  it  lightly  for  similar 
reasons.  When  we  recall  the  triumphs  and 
the  variety  of  the  sonnet  in  competent  hands, 
we  should  cease  to  marvel  at  the  love  artists 
bear  to  the  form.  It  has  soimded  bravely  as 
a  trumpet,  and  breathed  sweetly  as  the  flute. 
With  that  key  Shakespeare  luilocked  his  heart, 
and  the  divinest  poets  have  entrusted  to  it, 
as  to  a  magic  argosy,  their  most  intimate  and 
golden  freight.  It  has  been  radiant  or  sombre, 
alternately,  with  the  hues  of  life  and  death. 
Nevertheless  the  sonnet  is  a  thoroughly  dan- 
gerous form.  Once  master  its  technique,  and 
there  is  no  conceit  so  trivial,  no  fancy  so  thin 
or  far-fetched,  but  may  be  made  a  sort  of 
parable,  "  an  earthly  story  with  a  heavenly 
meaning  " — earthly  story  to  be  stated  in  the 
octave,  heavenly  meaning  duly  expounded 
in  the  sestet.  Though  form  be  all-important, 
and  any  faltering  of  the  hand  goes  before  the 
artist  to  judgment,  the  "  fundamental  brain- 
work  "  of  Rossetti's  famous  criticism  remains 
the  true  essential. 


74     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Heredia  was  of  his  day  and  school.  He 
purposed,  therefore,  to  compose  sonnets  quite 
other  than  those  I  have  described.  Flaubert 
had  written  novels  which  aimed  at  an  im- 
personal reproduction  of  an  altogether  ob- 
jective world.  Gautier  polished  his  "  Emaux 
et  Camees  "  whilst  the  German  guns  thundered 
without  the  walls  of  Paris.  The  poems  of  the 
master  of  the  Parnassians,  Leconte  de  Lisle,  were 
impassive  as  the  Sphinx,  and  all  his  disciples 
aspired  to  write  verses  that  should  be  equally 
without  bowels.  The  Venus  of  Milo,  un- 
doubtedly, was  not  flesh  and  blood,  but  marble. 
Heredia's  idea  was  to  write  a  series  of  sonnets 
which  should  deal  with  various  phases  of  nature 
and  civilization  in  an  absolutely  external  and 
decorative  fashion.  There  was  to  be  no  heavenly 
meaning  to  his  earthly  stories,  but  a  single 
theme  should  overflow  from  octave  to  sestet, 
the  picture  filling  alike  the  canvas  and  the 
predella.  His  ideal  sonnet  was  to  be  as  like 
to  a  mediaeval  miniature,  and  as  imlike  black 
signs  on  white  paper,  as  literary  pigment  could 
make  it.  In  addition,  the  personality  of  the 
artist  was  to  be  banished  remorselessly  from 
his  work.  Draped  in  his  cloak  of  Spanish 
pride,  Heredia  proposed  that  nothing  of  the 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  75 

soimeteer  should  be  seen,  save  only  in  choice 
of  subject  and  in  workmanship.  The  subject 
should  be  as  arresting,  the  craftsmanship  as 
miraculous,  as  skill  and  care  could  compass, 
but  nothing  of  the  character  and  the  proper 
emotion  of  the  artist  should  show  in  his  work. 
It  was  a  vain  dream.  A  work  of  art  is  as  much 
the  offspring  of  its  parent  as  a  child.  The 
child  betrays  his  father  in  some  trick  of  gesture, 
some  quality  of  mind,  or  disposition,  or 
character.  Flaubert  strove  with  might  and 
main  to  keep  himself  out  of  liis  novels.  He 
died  of  the  effort,  and  his  portrait  is  there  for 
all  men  to  see.  Gautier,  who  fiddled  whilst 
Paris  was  burning,  died  broken-hearted  at 
the  ruin  of  his  worshipped  city.  What  thou 
be-est,  that  thou  see-est,  as  the  Eastern  proverb 
has  it.  No  man  can  jump  off  his  shadow,  and 
the  portrait  of  Jose-Maria  de  Heredia  is  painted 
to  the  life  in  the  imperishable  colours  of  his 
delectable  book. 

The  himdred  or  so  sonnets  contributed  by 
Heredia  to  "Les  Trophies,"  wliich  form  thereally 
permanent  portion  of  liis  work,  bear  comparison 
to  any  sequence  of  sonnets  written  in  modem 
times.  They  excel  Mrs.  Browning's  "  Sonnets 
from  the  Portuguese  "  in  brilliance  of  colour,  if 


76     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

they  are  inferior  in  poignancy  of  emotion. 
Though  they  be  empty  of  the  mysticism  which  in- 
forms Rossetti's  "  House  of  Life  "  so  throughly, 
the  air  in  which  they  move  is  fresher  and  less 
stifling.  In  a  sense  I  suppose  that  only  the 
expert  can  appreciate  completely  the  amazing 
cleverness  of  Heredia's  performance.  Not 
content  with  the  difficulties  inherent  to  the 
form,  he  delighted  to  elaborate  unnecessary 
difficulties.  His  very  rhymes  are  chosen 
because  their  sound  is  suggestive  of  the  matter 
with  which  at  the  moment  he  deals.  "  The 
artist  asks  you  to  come  and  see,  not  perfect 
works  of  art,"  said  Manet,  "  but  sincere  works 
of  art."  Heredia's  work  is  both  perfect  and 
sincere.  Certainly  he  has  the  Nemesis  of  lus 
qualities.  A  hundred  sonnets,  each  standing 
in  glaring  sunshine,  every  one  sharp  in  outUne 
as  if  cut  out  of  metal,  scarcely  one  with  any 
repose  or  mystery  of  shadow,  necessarily  fatigue 
the  eye  if  read  on  end.  There  is  no  obligation 
to  do  so  The  very  choice  of  subject,  the  very 
division  into  sections,  is  an  invitation  to  read 
leisurely,  closing  the  page  often,  so  that  the 
flavour  may  be  retained  on  the  palate.  But 
the  fit  reader,  though  he  may  read  slowly, 
undoubtedly  will  read  to  the  close. 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  77 

The  theme  of  "  Les  Trophies,"  put  shortly, 
is  a  selection  of  such  features  of  mythology, 
history,  incident,  or  natural  beauty  as  may 
be  of  particular  personal  interest  to  the  writer. 
What  he  included,  therefore,  is  very  significant. 
But  the  man,  equally  with  the  artist,  is  known 
by  what  he  rejects.     The  subjects  ignored  by 
Heredia  are  as  informing  as  his  preferences. 
They    are    surprisingly    great.    Barbarism   in 
general  he  passes  proudly  by.    He  has  little 
to  say  of  any  civilization  before  that  of  Greece. 
Not  one  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world, 
by   whose   consolations   and   hopes   mankind 
has  ennobled  its  destiny,  touches  his  imagina- 
tion— except,  perhaps,  in  two  sonnets  which 
treat  of  the  early  life  of  Christ,  and  that  in  a 
purely    decorative   fashion.    These    are   large 
omissions,    but    fortunately    his    sympathies 
in  other  respects  are  rich  and  deep.     Greece 
and  Rome,  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance, 
the  Tropics,  Nature  and  Brittany,  these  furnish 
ample  material  to  the  most  fastidious  seeker 
after  beauty.    Heredia  begrudged  no  labour 
to  make  each  sonnet  worthy  of  its  matter. 
Every  poem  presupposes  a  long  preparation, 
an  elaborate  study  of  the  period,  the  coimtry, 
and  the  theme  with  which  it  is  concerned. 


78     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Scholarship  and  imagination  alike  have  gone 
hand  in  hand  to  their  shaping.  I  propose  to 
consider  each  of  these  sections  separately, 
although  as  shortly  as  possible.  It  is  my 
aim,  moreover,  to  illustrate  each  group  for 
English  readers  by  translating  at  least  one 
sonnet  included  in  such  section.  In  this  way 
it  is  hoped  some  slight  indication  of  the  value 
of  Heredia's  performance  may  be  furnished, 
especially  if  "  generously  expanded  to  the 
full  measure  of  the  writer's  intention."  At 
least  I  shall  have  had  the  pleasure  of  looking 
closely  at  beautiful  objects.  The  bee  passes 
amongst  the  flowers,  and  a  little  of  their  gold 
dust — so  she  be  fortunate — clings,  haply, 
to  her  wings. 

The  first  portion  of  Heredia's  sonnet  sequence 
concerns  itself  with  Greece  and  Rome.  He 
pays  due  homage  to  the  lovely  gods  and  god- 
desses of  that  mythology,  but  it  is  curious  to 
notice  that  his  real  interest  lies  rather  with  the 
strenuous  and  very  human  heroes  of  that 
absorbing  epoch.  Hercules  and  the  Centaurs, 
Jason  with  the  Golden  Fleece,  Perseus  and  the 
rescue  of  Andromeda,  these  clearly  stir  his 
pulse  and  exalt  his  imagination.  He  dreams 
over  these  epic  yesterdays,  just  as  in  a  later 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  79 

poem  his  forefathers,  the  Conquistadores, 
brood  over  epic  to-morrows.  He  tells  of 
Hamiibal,  and  of  the  great  adventure  which 
nearly  changed  the  destiny  of  a  world  ;  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and  the  mad  love  for 
which  an  empire  was  coimted  a  bauble.  His 
very  treatment  of  pagan  death  is  strenuous. 
To  think  of  such  a  subject  is,  for  the  average 
man,  to  recall  the  sculptured  stones  of  the  lad 
with  the  strigil,  and  the  woman  with  her  jewels. 
We  remember  those  "  tombs  of  Greece,  carved 
over  with  images  of  beauty  and  regret,  yet 
without  despair  or  anguish.  They  teach  that 
calm  acceptance  of  the  inevitable  which  is 
more  than  resignation,  which  is  serenity." 
Serenity  and  resignation  are  absent  from 
Heredia's  conception  of  pagan  death.  The 
ghost  wanders  with  anguish  and  indignant 
tears  in  the  Under- world,  lamenting  that  his 
slaying  is  unavenged.  The  widower  turns 
sleeplessly  upon  his  gold  and  ivory  bed,  pluck- 
ing at  the  purple  coverlet,  as  he  bewails  her 
who  is  gone,  and  calls  upon  the  hearer  to  pity 
her  fate.  With  these  sonnets  there  are  others 
at  a  less  passionate  pitch  of  tension — poems 
on  a  flute,  on  a  book  borrower,  on  a  grass- 
hopper, a  nmner,  a  charioteer.    I  have  selected 


80     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

one  of  these  quieter  examples  for  translation, 
merely  premising  that  the  original  is  excelled 
by  few  of  its  fellows  in  brilliance  of  colour 
and  art. 

THE  TEPIDARIUM 

Their  languid  members  macerate  with  myrrh, 
Luxurious — about  this  heated  room 
Where  brazen  brasiers  glow  within  the  gloom — 

The  women  lie,  and  dream,  and  make  no  stir. 

From  piled  red  couches,  sweet  with  lavender, 
A  body  rises,  that  warm  lamps  illume. 
Marble  or  amber,  like  a  rose  in  bloom ; 

Through  thin  lawn  veilings  burns  the  grace  of  her. 

Feeling  on  naked  flesh  the  ardent  heat. 
An  Asian  woman  stands  upon  her  feet 

And  yawns,  to  speed  the  long  slow  hours  that 
pass  ; 
Whilst  white  and  wondering  maids  from  other 

zones 
Grow  raptured,  o^er  the  rich  barbaric  tones 
Of  jet-black  hair  upon  a  bust  of  brass. 

The  only  "  heroes  "  included  in  the  section 
devoted  to  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance 
are  the  Conquistadores  realizing  their  dream 
of  "  epic  to-morrows."    It  was  not  that  "  super- 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  81 

men  "  were  unknown  to  the  period.  On  the 
contrary,  they  positively  luxuriated.  Heredia 
concerns  himself  with  but  one,  and  his  sonnet 
on  Michael  Angelo  is,  oddly  enough,  placed  out 
of  its  natural  sequence.  Neither  is  any  re- 
ference made  to  architecture,  the  charac- 
teristic and  stupendous  art  of  the  Middle  Ages 
to  which  all  other  arts  were  ancillary  as  hand- 
maids. Those  Gothic  cathedrals  which  are 
the  glories  of  France  are  not  even  glanced 
at.  Clearly  Heredia  was  more  interested 
in  the  delightful  but  minor  craft  of  the  gold- 
smith, the  bookbinder,  the  maker  of  that 
incomparable  stained  glass  which  furnishes 
the  Sainte  Chapelle  and  Chartres  Cathedral 
with  such  wonderful  eyes.  On  these,  and  on 
that  charming  craft  of  the  toilette,  enabling  a 
woman  to  be  herself  a  work  of  art,  he  wrote 
triumphantly  ;  and  I  select,  from  mere  personal 
whim,  three  of  these  sonnets  to  serve  as 
illustrations. 

THE  ROSE-WINDOW 

Beneath  this  painted  window,  count  and  dame 
Inplume  and  casque  and  silken  hood  have  prayed, 
Whilst  o^er  tlieir  lowly  fieads  the  rich  cascade 

Of  riotous  colour  broke  in  pearl  and  flame. 


82     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Then  passing  hence,  assailed  and  free  from  blame, 
Falcon  on  wrist,  perchance,  or  steel-arrayed, 
They  pricked  to  chace,  or  sought  the  far  Crusade, 

Struck  down  a  heron,  or  advanced  a  name. 

Now,  side  by  side,  are  dame  and  baron  found. 
With  feet  soft-pillowed  on  a  couchant  hound. 

Above  a  little  dust,  in  carven  stone. 
Dumb,  motionless  and  deaf,  their  effigies 
Watch,  rvitlwut  sight  in  blank,  untroubled  eyes, 

The  stained  Rose-Window — fadeless,  freshly 
blown. 


THE  OLD  GOLDSMITH 

I  handled  brush  and  graver  with  more  ease, 
More  deftness,  than  all  masters  of  the  guild. 
In  jewelled   zvork   my   cunning   brain    was 
skilled, 
I   shaped   the   vase,    and  wrought   its   storied 

frieze. 
Now,  silver  and  enamel  fail  to  please. 

For  there  I  traced — so  my  snared  soul  hath 

willed — 
No  sacred  Rood,  no  Deacon  Lawrence  grilled 
But    vine-girt   gods,    or    Dana£s   gold-clasped 
knees. 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  88 

To  HelVs  own  service  my  red  forge  inlaid 
With  fair  devices  some  rich  ruffler^s  blade, 

Till  deep  in  pride  my  part  of  Life  is  lost. 
Thus,  seeing  I  grow  fearful,  and  am  old. 
Ere  death  may  come  and  falling  dark  enfold, 

I  chase  a  golden  monstrance  for  the  Host. 

THE  CABINET-MAKER  OF  NAZARETH 

From  strenuous  dawn  the  Carpenter  hath  bent 
Above  his  bench,  toiling  that  set  of  sun 
May  find  the  polished  aumbry  fitly  done, 

With  cunning  hand  and  tool  subservient. 

Blue  shadows  touch  the  threshold,  day  is  spent ; 
The  goodman  marks  the  palm  tree,  where  anon 
St.  Anne,  Our  Lady,  and  the  Prince,  her  Son, 

Will  rest  awhile  with  folded  hands,  content. 

Heat  broods  on  branch  andfiow''r,  no  petals  fall. 
St.  Joseph,  long  outwearied,  drops  the  awl 

And  with  his  apron  wipes  his  brow  ammn. 
But  tJie  Divine  Apprentice  in  the  room 
Works  on,  suffused  zvith  splendour  Against  the 
gloom. 
Whilst  golden  shamngs  curl  from  ^neath  His 
plane. 

The  third  section  is  devoted  to  the  Near  East 
and  the  Tropics.     It  includes  some  beautiful 


84     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

work  on  the  Egypt  of  the  Sphinx — colossal 
and  terrifying — as  well  as  work  on  that  later 
Egypt  which  might  well  be,  and  is,  fittingly 
dedicated  to  M.  G^rome.  The  Japanese 
sonnets  are  especially  interesting.  They  deal 
with  phases  of  life  long  since  passed  away, 
and  form  an  admirable  foil  to  Loti's  sentimental 
excursions  in  that  country.  Heredia  describes 
the  hero  of  old  Japan,  the  Daimio,  on  the 
battlefield,  clad  in  armour  of  brass  and  lacquer- 
work,  sheltering  his  eyes  from  the  glaring  sun 
with  a  fan  of  iron  and  white  satin.  How 
piercing  is  the  contrast  with  the  officer  and 
accoutrements  of  to-day  !  Again,  how  much 
of  ancient  Japan,  or  at  least  of  the  Japanese 
bibelot,  is  in  the  following  toy  : 


LE  S AMOUR AI 

The  loud  strings  thrill  beneath  her  languid  hand, 
Whilst  through  interstices  of  latticed  wall 
She  knows  her  destined  lover^s  proud  footfall 

Upon  th'  unsheltered  waste  of  quivering  sand. 

With  eyes  fan-shaded,  girt  with  two-fold  brand. 
In  sombre  mail  he  comes,  and  bears  withal 
Hizen's  device  and  crest  armorial 

Above  the  fringes  of  his  crimson  band. 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  85 

This  mighty  swordsman,  dight  with  plate  and 

blade. 
In  bronze  and  silk  and  lacquer-work  arrayed. 

Shows  like  some  huge  crustacean,  black  and  red. 
He  sees,  he  smiles  beneath  his  bearded  mask. 

And  sunlit,  gleaming  with  his  quickened  tread. 
Twin  gold  antennae  tremble  at  his  casque. 

The  final  section  of  this  wonderful  sequence — 
that  devoted  to  Nature  and  to  Dream — con- 
tains some  of  Heredia's  most  vivid  and  charac- 
teristic work.  Here  is  collected  a  group  of 
miscellaneous  sonnets,  dealing  largely  with 
landscape  and  with  such  aspects  of  Natiu*e 
as  are  of  peculiar  import  to  the  writer.  It  was 
no  wonder  that  Anatole  France,  in  turning 
over  his  memories  of  Heredia's  youth,  remarked 
that  "  he  always  dressed  as  the  young  gentle- 
man." He  is  the  "  gentleman  "  here.  Other 
ppets  had  given  Nature  gods.  Heredia  tricks 
her  in  a  coat  of  arms,  gay  with  paint,  and 
blazoned  with  all  the  devices  of  heraldry. 
But  he  touches  a  more  human  note  in  the 
beautiful  sonnets  concerned  with  Brittany. 
The  pathos  of  the  lives  of  those  simple  and 
hardy  fisher-folk  lifts  him  above  himself. 
Nearly  for  the  first  time  he  betrays  the  divine 


86     PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

gift  of  sympathy  with  unpoetical  griefs — 
when  speaking,  for  instance,  of  the  women 
praying  on  the  cUff  for  those  who  will  never 
come  back  from  sea.  Here,  in  this  section, 
may  be  found  a  little  of  that  shadow,  that 
sense  of  mystery,  needed  to  temper  the  hard 
outlines,  the  almost  cruel  colour  of  his  work. 
Here  he  discovered  a  soul.  Had  he  written 
more  often  in  the  tone  of  "  The  Breton  Bed  "  it 
is  possible  his  reputation  as  a  poet  would  stand 
wider  and  higher  than  it  actually  does.  For 
people  live  by  bread  and  will  not  be  fobbed 
off  with  a  stone,  even  though  the  stone  be  a 
precious  gem  polished  and  set  with  all  the 
resources  of  the  most  consummate  art. 

THE  BRETON  BED 

Curtained  with  sober  serge,  or  stiff  brocade, 
Sad  as  a  grave,  or  gay  as  Love's  warm  nest. 
Here  man  is  bom,  sleeps  well,  lies  breast  to 
breast. 

Babe,  husband,  ancient,  grandam,  wife,  and  maid. 

Above  this  bed,  where  Love  and  Death  are  stayed. 
In  turn  the  Palm,  the  Crucifix  is  drest  ; 
Whence  flowed  the  source,  there  sinks  the  stream 
to  rest, 

From  Life's  first  dawn  to  tfiat  last  tapefs  shade. 


THE  POET  AS  ARTIST  8T 

Whether  the  couch  be  shuttered,  rustic,  mean, 
Prankt  richly  forth  zvith  scarlet,  gold,  and  green. 
Fashioned  of  rough-hezvn  oak  or  cypress  wood ; 
Happy  the  man  who  sleeps  with  quiet  head. 
With  equal  breath,  zvith  conscience  clear  and 
good. 
Where  all  his  sib  were  bom,  where  each  lay 
dead. 

Perhaps  I  should  add  that  certain  of  the 
foregoing  translations  are  taken  from  books 
of  verses  which  I  have  neither  the  right  to 
praise  nor  the  desire  to  blame  ;  whilst  others 
are  printed  here  for  the  first  time.  Certainly, 
too,  I  owe  an  apology  for  the  roughness  of  my 
hand  to  the  memory  of  one  who,  if  not  the 
greatest  poet,  was  probably  the  most  accom- 
plished artist  of  his  time. 


THE    POET   AS   MYSTIC 
WILLIAM  BUTLER  YEATS 


THE  Irish  literary  movement  of  our  time 
is  the  most  interesting  artistic  event 
since  the  formation  of  the  Pre- 
RaphaeUte  Brotherhood.  It  exhibits  the  same 
combination  of  diverse  personahties  and  gifts 
dominated  by  one  common  aim  and  directed 
towards  one  single  end.  The  group  composing 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood  and  its  literary 
associates  petered  out  partly  because  its 
work  was  done,  and  partly  because  it  was 
wounded  in  the  house  of  its  friends.  Beauty 
and  truth  had  kissed  each  other,  but  the 
embrace  severed  with  quarrels  over  money 
matters,  and  in  threats  of  writs  and  legal 
proceedings.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  coat 
may  never  be  trailed  in  Ireland.  In  a  sense 
the  various  phases  of  the  Irish  literary  move- 
ment are  an  outcome  of  the  demand  for  Home 
Rule,  and  the  toast  of  Ireland — a  nation. 
They  aim  to  provide  that  purely  political 
89 


90    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

conception  with  a  soul.  A  nation  is  not  a 
mere  fortuitous  assemblage  of  people  on  a 
certain  portion  of  the  world's  surface,  but 
a  vmity  with  a  conunon  language,  a  common 
past,  and  a  common  tradition.  The  aim  of 
the  Irish  literary  movement  is  to  promote  the 
study  of  the  old  Gaelic  tongue,  to  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  the  ancient  myths  and  myth- 
ology, and  to  ensue  a  future  fellowship  by 
means  of  a  community  of  interests.  The 
men  and  women  allied  together  for  purposes 
such  as  these  may  have  very  different  political 
and  religious  sympathies.  Possibly  they  are 
to  be  found  even  in  opposite  camps.  Certainly 
their  individualities  are  very  distinct,  and  at 
a  casual  glance  one  might  think  not  par- 
ticularly sympathetic.  Amongst  the  more 
prominent  of  those  connected  with  this  Celtic 
Renaissance  may  be  mentioned  Dr.  Douglas 
Hyde,  author  of  "  The  Literary  History  of 
Ireland,"  and  translator  of  the  exquisite 
"  Love  Songs  of  Connacht."  Dr.  Hyde  is  the 
scholar  of  the  movement,  a  great  authority  on 
the  old  Gaelic  tongue.  Not  all  of  his  colleagues 
have  a  working  knowledge  of  that  language, 
and  it  is  a  gratification  to  the  Saxon  that  for  his 
deUght  they  are  constrained  to  write  in  English. 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  91 

Lady  Gregory  is  a  student  in  a  near  field — 
with  one  foot,  however,  at  the  stage-door — and 
her  volumes  of  translations  from  the  various 
cycles  of  Irish  romance  are  as  beautiful  as  her 
excursions  into  modem  farce  are  entertaining. 
Mr.  Yeats  believes  that  in  Lady  Gregory's 
renderings  Ireland  has  found  her  "  Mabinogion  " 
and  "  Morte  D'Arthur."  He  thinks  "  Cuchu- 
lain "  the  best  book  that  has  come  out  of 
Ireland  in  his  time — ^perhaps  the  best  book 
that  has  ever  come  out  of  Ireland  ;  and  cer- 
tainly "  Cuchulain "  deserves  much,  if  not 
perhaps  quite  all,  of  his  generous  praise. 
Associated  with  Lady  Gregory  in  her  laboiu-s 
for  the  Irish  National  Theatre  Society  was 
Synge,  whose  premature  death  is  a  loss  not 
merely  to  the  parochial  drama,  but  to  the  whole 
English-speaking  race.  Written  in  a  curiously 
rhythmic  and  musical  prose,  Synge's  bitter 
comedies  and  undiluted  tragedies  are  the 
most  memorable  stage  work  from  an  Irish- 
man (with  the  single  exception  of  Bernard 
Shaw)  since  the  brilUant  artificial  comedies 
of  Oscar  Wilde.  But  above  all,  to  the  on- 
looker, the  Irish  literary  movement  is  sunmied 
up  in  one  picturesque  figure,  the  most  arresting 
personality  of  the  whole  group,  Mr.  W.  B,  Yeats. 


92    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Not  only  is  he  its  most  distinguished  poet, 
he  even  enters  into  the  spirit  of  his  role.  His 
enthusiasm  provides  the  driving  power  and 
the  motive  force  from  which  the  movement 
derives  its  strength.  His  work  is  the  flag 
round  which  the  central  battle  has  been  waged. 
Mr.  Yeats  was  described  by  Mr.  George  Moore, 
in  "  Evelyn  Innes,"  vmder  the  name  of  Ulick 
Dean.  In  that  novel  he  was  pictured  as  a 
hater  of  materialism,  and  as  a  believer  in  all 
mythologies — more  particularly  the  Irish.  This 
is  how  he  appeared  to  the  novelist :  "  He  had 
one  of  those  long  Irish  faces,  all  in  a  straight 
line,  with  flat,  slightly  hollow  cheeks,  and  a 
long  chin.  It  was  clean  shaven,  and  a  heavy 
lock  of  black  hair  was  always  falling  over  his 
eyes.  It  was  his  eyes  that  gave  the  sombre 
ecstatic  character  to  his  face.  They  were 
large,  dark,  deeply  set,  singularly  shaped,  and 
they  seemed  to  smoulder  Uke  fires  in  caves, 
leaping  and  sinking  out  of  the  darkness.  He 
was  a  tall,  thin  young  man,  and  he  wore  a  black 
jacket  and  a  large  necktie,  tied  with  the  ends 
hanging  loose  over  his  coat."  Many  further 
references  to  Mr.  Yeats'  personal  characteristics 
are  to  be  foimd  by  the  curious,  scattered 
through  the  pages  of  the  same  writer's  indis- 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  93 

creet  trinity  of  memories  entitled  "  Hail  and 
Farewell." 

William  Butler  Yeats  was  born  in  Dublin 
in  1866,  the  son  of  a  well-known  Irish  artist, 
Mr.  J.  B.  Yeats.  He  is  therefore  well  under 
fifty  years  of  age,  and  we  may  hope  has  many 
years  yet  to  fill  with  the  activities  which  have 
made  his  career  so  distinguished.  Mr.  Yeats 
was  educated  in  his  native  city,  and  for  a  time 
intended  to  follow  his  father's  profession.  In 
1887,  however,  his  family  removed  to  London, 
where  he  devoted  himself  to  literary  work, 
and  contributed  to  the  magazines.  Two 
voliunes  of  poems  published  by  him  attracted 
considerable  attention,  and  made  clear  to  that 
contemptible  portion  of  the  public  which 
cares  for  poetry,  that  a  fresh  singing  voice, 
with  a  novel  accent,  was  abroad  in  the  land. 
The  curious  strain  of  mysticism  running 
through  Mr.  Yeats'  character  now  became 
more  apparent,  for  it  had  been  evidenced 
already  in  his  verse.  He  devoted  himself 
to  an  elaborate  study  of  Blake — ^the  poet- 
artist  whom  we  consider  sane  or  mad  according 
to  the  measure  of  our  sympathy  with  his 
philosophy.  He  spent  some  considerable  time 
in    Paris,    frequenting    the    company    of   Sar 


94    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Peladan,  that  famous  novelist  and  spiritualist 
— mage  or  charlatan,  as  you  will — for  the 
study  of  the  magical  tradition,  and  in  the  hopes 
of  raising  ghosts.  The  results  of  these  experi- 
ments and  speculations  he  set  forth  in  books  of 
essays  which  are  not  always  certain  of  the 
sympathy  of  those  who  are  amongst  the  most 
enthusiastic  admirers  of  his  genius.  Mr. 
Yeats  returned  to  Ireland  and  threw  himself 
whole-heartedly  into  the  daylight  affairs  of  a 
tangible  world.  He  assisted  in  the  foundation 
of  the  National  Literary  Society  and  of  the 
Irish  Literary  Society  of  London.  "  We  are 
preparing  likely  enough,"  he  said,  "  for  a  new 
Irish  literary  movement  that  will  show  itself 
in  the  first  lull  in  politics."  Awaiting  that  lull 
he  stood  upon  Nationalist  platforms  and 
proved  the  coiu*age  of  his  political  opinions. 
In  company  with  Lady  Gregory  he  collected 
folk-tales  from  the  mouth  of  peasants,  and 
conned  the  legends  she  was  to  incorporate 
later  in  books  he  loves  so  well.  Then  an  interest 
developed  which  was  destined  to  prove  a 
veritable  Aaron's  rod  amongst  the  wands  of 
the  enchanters.  The  Irish  National  Theatre 
Society  was  founded,  and  quickly  swallowed 
all  the  other  pursuits  he  had  engaged  in  so  long. 


THE  POET  AS  JMYSTIC  95 

Even  poetry — his  real  bride — had  to  give  way 
to  tlie  imperious  new  mistress.  The  volumes 
grew  smaller,  and  the  gap  between  them  in- 
creasingly wide.  Doubtless  a  larger  public  is 
interested  in  the  drama  than  in  poetry  ;  but  the 
minority  are  not  comforted,  and  fear  that  Mr. 
Yeats  is  bestowing  silver  where  his  gifts  might 
be  gold.  But  he  refuses  to  be  turned  from  his 
course. 

The  reasons  for  Mr.  Yeats'  interest  in  the 
theatre  are  perfectly  clear.  A  dislike  of  the 
commercial  drama,  and  a  conviction  that  the 
modem  play  is  choked  under  idle  trappings 
and  accessories,  are  not  peculiar  to  Ireland, 
and  indeed  are  generally  shared.  His  desire 
to  see  the  Irish  stage  reflect  the  legends  and 
daily  life  of  its  coimtry  is  one,  also,  that  every 
patriot  will  receive  with  respect.  The  true 
trouble  is  that  Mr.  Yeats'  talent  is  not  essen- 
tially dramatic.  I  would  suggest  that  his 
discovery  of  S3mge  in  a  Paris  attic  near  the 
Luxemboiu-g  Gardens  remains  his  most  valu- 
able contribution  to  the  service  of  the  drama. 
Mr.  Yeats  has  placed  many  of  his  own  plays 
upon  the  boards,  and  "  The  Coimtess  Cathleen  " 
shares  the  distinction,  in  common  with  "  The 
Playboy  of  the  Western  World,"  of  very  nearly 


96    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

provoking  a  riot.  I  doubt  whether  any  com- 
petent critic  would  maintain  that  Mr.  Yeats' 
plays  are  completely  successful  as  dramatic 
experiments — interesting  certainly,  but  scarcely 
successful.  The  one  possible  exception — and 
it  is  a  significant  exception — is  "  Cathleen  ni 
Hoolihan."  The  Poor  Old  Woman's  lamenta- 
tion over  the  loss  of  her  four  beautiful  green 
fields,  her  great  central  speech,  and  the  boy's 
description  of  her  as  a  young  girl  with  the 
walk  of  a  queen,  undoubtedly  go  to  the  heart ; 
but  how  much  of  the  effect  is  due  to  a  political 
conception  is  difficult  to  determine.  It  is 
certain  that  could  lovely  poetry  and  musical 
periods  constitute  a  play,  these  efforts  would 
be  the  greatest  dramas  of  our  time.  Neither 
has  Mr.  Yeats  been  served  amiss  by  the  per- 
formers who  essayed  his  characters  and  spoke 
his  words.  Actors  of  the  highest  distinction 
have  played  these  parts,  and  London  has  been 
privileged  to  enjoy  the  consummate  performance 
of  Miss  Sara  Allgood  as  The  Poor  Old  Woman, 
and  of  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell  as  Deirdre,  in  the 
drama  of  that  name.  The  fact  seems  to  be 
that  the  fairy  tales  and  Celtic  dreams  beloved 
of  the  poet  are  too  remote  and  far  from  a 
popular  audience.     It  is  indeed  a  dream-heavy 


THE  POET  AS  IVIYSTIC  97 

land  in  which  we  wander  for  a  dream-heavy 
hour.  The  lines  are  too  lyrical  for  drama,  and 
do  not  really  carry  across  the  footlights.  They 
sound  sweeter  and  sing  more  tunably  in  the 
study.  Above  all,  when  the  drama,  which 
depends  upon  an  immediate  appeal,  is  made 
the  vehicle  of  such  a  dim  and  paralysing 
mysticism  as  informs,  for  instance,  "  The 
Shadowy  Waters,"  it  is  no  wonder  that  the 
average  sensual  man  turns  impatiently  to  a 
simpler  and  a  coarser  fare. 

The  genius  of  Mr.  Yeats  moves  more  easily 
through  the  narrative  poems  he  has  foimded 
on  legends  derived  from  Gaelic  sources.  Thanks 
to  the  devoted  labours  of  a  band  of  modem 
scholars,  Celtic  mj^hology  and  folk-tale  are 
opened  up  to  English  readers  ;  and  whilst  all 
is  interesting,  much  is  even  curiously  beautiful. 
The  early  legends  of  the  Irish  Celt  are  full 
of  a  haunting  charm,  and  of  a  melancholy 
quite  their  own.  He  has  embodied  in  Cuchu- 
lain  liis  conception  of  man  as  hero,  akin  in 
spirit  to  the  Greek  idea  of  Hercules.  He  has  pro- 
duced in  "  Deirdre  "  one  of  the  half-dozen  great 
love  stories  of  the  world.  He  has  created  in 
her  person  a  heroine  who  very  nearly  realizes 
the    six   graces    of   womanhood    representing 

o 


98    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

the  Celtic  ideal — the  gifts  of  beauty,  of  singing, 
of  sweet  speech,  and  of  needlework,  the  gift  of 
counsel,  and  the  gift  of  chastity.  At  times, 
indeed,  a  strange  ironical  merriment  breaks 
across  his  dreaminess  ;  such,  for  instance,  as 
the  inextinguishable  laughter  of  the. heroes  at 
Finn's  return,  with  Grania — ^that  errant  wife — 
leaning  lovingly  upon  his  neck  It  is  odd 
that  William  Morris  cared  less  for  the  Irish 
mythology  than  for  any  other  with  which 
he  was  acquainted.  Possibly  the  stories  were 
too  lyrical,  romantic,  and  dreamy  for  his  mature 
taste,  which  as  he  grew  older  turned  more 
and  more  to  the  sombre  and  dramatic  temper 
of  the  Norse.  These  very  quaUties  endear 
them  to  Yeats,  who,  far  more  than  the  poet 
who  applied  the  phrase  to  liimself,  is  a  dreamer 
of  dreams.  "  We  Irish  should  keep  these  per- 
sonages much  in  our  hearts,  for  they  lived  in 
the  places  where  we  ride  and  go  marketing,  and 
sometimes  they  have  met  one  another  on  the 
hills  that  cast  their  shadows  upon  our  doors  at 
evening.  If  we  will  but  tell  these  stories  to  our 
children  the  land  will  begin  again  to  be  a  Holy 
Land,  as  it  was  before  men  gave  their  hearts 
to  Greece  and  Rome  and  Judea.  When  I  was 
a  child  I  had  only  to  cHmb  the  hill  behind  the 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  99 

house  to  see  long,  blue,  ragged  hills  flowing 
along  the  southern  horizon.  What  beauty 
was  lost  to  me,  what  depth  of  emotion  is  still 
perhaps  lacking  in  me,  because  nobody  told 
me,  not  even  the  merchant  captains  who  knew 
everything,  that  Cruachan  of  the  Enchantments 
lay  behind  those  long,  blue,  ragged  hills  !  " 

Amongst  the  most  charming  of  these  narra- 
tives are  the  "  Death  of  Cuhoollin "  and 
"  Baile  and  Aillinn."  These  poems  are  told  in 
rhymed  couplets,  and  in  a  fluent  and  coloured 
verse  very  personal  to  their  writer.  The 
first  relates  the  story  of  the  combat  between 
Cuhoollin  and  his  unrecognized  son  Finmole, 
in  which  the  lad  is  slain.  In  death  the  boy 
reveals  his  secret,  and  Cuhoollin,  driven  mad 
by  remorse,  is  drowned  fighting  the  incoming 
tide.  It  is  a  story  that  has  blown  like  thistle- 
down about  the  four  winds.  It  is  the  Persian 
legend  of  Sohrab  and  Rustum,  and  is  to  be  met 
with  in  the  mediaeval  romances  of  Marie  de 
France  under  the  title  of  the  "  Lay  of  Milon." 
The  story  of  "  Baile  and  Aillinn "  is  very 
delicate,  and  is  narrated  with  an  elusive  and 
sidelong  grace  which  adds  to  the  charm. 
The  argument  is  simple.  Baile  and  Aillinn 
were  lovers,  but  Aengus,  the  Master  of  Love, 


100   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

wishing  them  to  be  happy  in  his  own  land 
among  the  dead,  told  to  each  a  story  of  the 
other's  death,  so  that  their  hearts  were  broken, 
and  they  died.  These  narratives,  together 
always  with  the  memorable  "  Wanderings  of 
Usheen,"  represent  Mr.  Yeats'  gift  of  story- 
telling at  its  best.  The  "  Wanderings  of 
Usheen  "  was  published  in  1889,  but  in  the 
revised  version  it  remains  yet  its  author's 
most  characteristic  piece  of  story -telling.  The 
poem  in  its  present  form  is  undoubtedly  a 
finer  work  than  the  original  sketch,  and  this 
is  saying  much.  Mr.  Yeats  is  not  always  so 
happy  in  emendation,  and  painful  experience 
has  taught  us  to  mistrust  his  zeal  in  gilding 
gold  and  painting  the  lily.  The  "  Wanderings 
of  Usheen  "  is  founded  upon  the  Irish  dialogues 
of  St.  Patrick  and  Usheen,  and  is  related  by  the 
Fenian  hero  to  the  Christian  bishop  in  the  first 
person.    It  tells  how  he 

Found  on  the  dove-grey  edge  of  the  sea 
A  pearl-pale,  high-born  lady,  who  rode 
On  a  horse  with  a  bridle  offindrinny ; 
And  like  a  sunset  were  her  lips, 
A  stormy  sunset  on  doomed  ships ; 
A  citron  colour  gloomed  in  her  hair, 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  101 

Bui  down  to  her  feel  white  vesture  flowed. 
And  with  the  glimmering  crimson  glowed 
Of  many  a  figured  embroidery ; 
And  it  was  bound  with  a  pearl-pale  shell 
That  wavered  like  the  suminer  streams. 
As  her  soft  bosom  rose  and  fell. 

This  lady  was  Neave,  a  princess  of  faery.  She 
cast  the  spell  of  her  beauty  and  her  love  upon 
the  hero,  and  carried  him  across  the  sea,  to  the 
Kingdom  of  Aengus,  the  Land  of  Unfading 
Youth.  Here  the  Fenian  spent  a  hundred 
years  in  softness  and  delight.  At  the  end  of  that 
century — which  passed  swiftly  as  a  watch — 
Usheen  came  upon  the  broken  staflf  of  a  warrior's 
spear.  The  weapon  brought  back  memories 
of  his  comrades  and  their  wars,  and  he  grew 
dissatisfied  with  his  ease.  To  keep  him  at  her 
side  Neave  carried  her  mortal  hero  to  the 
Island  of  Victories,  where  for  another  hundred 
years  he  fought  and  slew,  again  and  again,  an 
unsubduable  demon.  In  the  pauses  of  the 
ceaseless  combat  Usheen  ate  and  drank,  and  so 
maintained  an  endless  feast,  an  endless  war. 
On  this  merry  life  broke  in  the  disturbing 
thought  of  Finn,  his  white-haired  king.  Finding 
memory  to  be  vital  as  the  deathless  demon, 


102   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Neave  next  lured  her  lover  to  the  Island  of 
Forgetfulness.  For  another  century  he  lived 
content,  till  when  the  three  hundred  years 
of  his  exile  were  accomplished  he  was  possessed 
by  desire  to  see  his  home.  "  Remembrance, 
lifting  her  leanness,  keened  in  the  gates  of  his 
heart."  Usheen  returned  to  Ireland,  a  creeping 
old  man,  full  of  sleep,  with  the  spittle  never 
dry  on  his  beard.  The  Ireland  he  left  had 
passed  away.  His  comrades  were  long  since 
dead.  The  very  ideals  of  the  land  had  changed, 
and  Patrick  the  bishop,  with  his  crozier, 
assured  him  that  the  Fenian  heroes  were  tossing 
on  the  flaming  pavement  of  Hell.  Usheen, 
broken  with  pain  and  with  years,  was  too  old 
to  change  with  the  times.  He  threw  away 
the  rosary  of  small  stones  the  saint  had  given 
him,  and  elected  to  join  the  Fenians,  whether 
in  the  flames  or  at  feast. 

This  bald  summary  does  not  do  justice — 
indeed  is  flagrantly  unfair — to  a  most  charming 
story.  The  "  Wanderings  of  Usheen  "  is  certainly 
one  of  the  finest  narratives  of  our  time.  The 
handling  of  the  contrasted  metres,  the  various 
music,  and  the  rich  colouring  are  worthy  of  the 
highest  praise.  The  closing  scene  between  the 
cleric  and  the  hero,  too,  is  essentially  dramatic 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  103 

far  more  so  indeed  than  Mr.  Yeats'  more  formal 
efforts.  The  story  is  worthy  of  a  place  amongst 
the  dreams  composing  the  "  Earthly  Paradise," 
to  one  of  which — the  legend  of  Ogier  the  Dane 
— ^it  bears  some  resemblance.  But  "  Usheen  " 
has  qualities  of  beauty  that  are  absent  even 
from  the  perfect  tales  of  William  Morris. 

It  would  seem  unlikely  that  Mr.  Y'eats  could 
do  better  work  than  these  narratives,  were  not 
his  lyrics  in  evidence.  Undoubtedly  these 
lyrical  writings  are  the  fine  flower  of  his  gift. 
Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  breezy  fashion,  once 
described  claret  as  the  drink  for  boys,  port  for 
men,  and  brandy  for  heroes.  It  is  easy  to 
determine  which  are  the  claret,  the  port,  and 
the  brandy  respectively  of  Mr.  Yeats'  cellar. 
I  do  not  suggest  that  the  "  brandy  "  is  of  a  very 
ardent  or  fiery  quality.  The  lyrics  are  as 
Celtic  as  the  dramas  and  the  romances,  and 
to  the  full  as  dreamy.  The  love  poetry,  for 
example,  is  beautiful,  but  vague  and  dim. 
Had  we  not  Mr.  Moore's  emphatic  assurance 
it  would  appear  impossible  to  believe  that  the 
poet  wrote  such  poems  imder  the  ecstasy  of  love, 
or  that  they  were  addressed  to  a  woman  of 
warm  flesh  and  nmning  blood.  Like  Raphael's 
Madonnas  they  seem  rather  to  derive  from 


104  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

a  certain  idea  in  the  mind.  There  is  more 
passion  in  the  verses  that  record  his  following 
after  "  the  red -rose-bordered  hem  "  of  Ireland's 
robe,  than  in  any  rhyme  he  has  dedicated  to 
a  mortal  maid.  All  that  Mr.  Yeats  knows  of 
melody  and  music  and  colour  he  has  put  into 
his  lyrics.  None  but  those  who  refuse  to  see 
beauty  except  in  precise  and  definite  shape 
can  be  indifferent  to  their  vague  loveliness  of 
outline,  or  to  the  mystery  that  informs  these 
songs.  If  at  times  the  feet  seem  to  halt,  we 
must  not  be  deceived.  It  is  the  very  artfulness 
of  simplicity,  and  the  hesitation,  the  "  stam- 
mer," is  contrived  deUberately  to  increase  the 
total  effect.  Mr.  Yeats — like  Mr.  Robert 
Bridges — is  a  scholar,  and  indulges  in  learned 
experiments.  These  are,  or  should  be,  the 
joy  of  the  amateur  or  the  aspirant,  on  the  one 
condition  that  he  admires,  but  refrains  from 
imitation.  In  another  fashion,  too,  this 
scholarly  poet  is  a  snare  for  the  unwary.  He 
is  a  symbolist,  which  is  to  say,  in  his  own  words, 
that  he  endeavours  to  catch  some  high  im- 
palpable mood  in  a  net  of  obscure  images.  The 
obscurity  at  which  Yeats  hints  is  very  pro- 
nounced, not  to  say  Cimmerian.  A  gloss  to 
many    poems    is    absolutely    necessary.    The 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  105 

"  Wind  among  the  Reeds  "  is  a  volume  of  some 
108  pages.  Of  these  but  62  are  poetry,  and 
the  rest  of  the  handful  of  a  book  is  occupied 
by  a  bewildering  paraphernalia  of  notes  ;  an 
intolerable  deal  of  sack  with  but  a  ha'p'orth  of 
bread.  There  are  passages  in  these  poems 
so  crudely  and  aggressively  symbolist  as  to 
set  the  teeth  on  edge.  No  parochial  patriotism 
can  succeed  in  making  poetry  of  "  the  boar 
without  bristles  "  or  "  the  valley  of  the  black 
pig  "  ;  and  as  for  the  notes  they  simply  darken 
coimsel  with  their  fantastic  talk  of  "  the 
magical  tradition."  Will  any  reader  with  an 
instinct  for  commentary  care  to  decipher  the 
following  liieroglyphics  ?  They  come  from 
"  The  Happy  Townland,"  a  poem  included  in 
"  The  Seven  Woods." 

Michael  will  unhook  his  trumpet 

From  a  bough  overhead. 

And  blow  a  little  noise 

When  the  supper  has  been  spread. 

Gabriel  will  come  from  the  water 

With  a  fish  tail,  and  talk 

Of  wonders  that  have  happened 

On  wet  roads  where  men  walk. 

And  lift  up  an  old  horn 


106  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Of  hammered  silver,  and  drink 
Till  lie  has  fallen  asleep 
Upon  the  starry  brink. 

It  is  all  very  strange  and  perplexing  ;  but 
perhaps — as  Lamb  observed  of  Coleridge's 
metaphysic — it  is  only  his  fun.  I  do  not 
desire  to  conclude  these  remarks  on  Mr.  Yeats' 
lyrics  in  a  tone  of  remonstrance,  however 
gentle.  It  is  more  pleasant  and  easy  to  praise. 
For  sheer  love  of  the  lovely  words  quotation  may 
be  permitted  of  one  of  the  happiest  lyrics  from 
"The  Wind  among  the  Reeds."  It  is  of  the  poet's 
best,  which  means  that  it  is  excelled  by  no  singer 
of  our  time,  save,  possibly,  by  Mr.  Yeats  himself. 

All  things  uncomely  and  broken,  all  things  worn 

out  and  old, 
The  cry  of  a  child  by  the  roadway,  the  creak  of 

a  lumbering  cart. 
The  heavy  steps  of  the  ploughman,  splashing  the 

wintry  mould, 
Are  wronging  your  image  that  blossoms  a  rose 

in  the  deeps  of  my  heart. 

The  wrong  of  unshapely  things  is  a  wrong  too 

great  to  be  told ; 
I  hunger  to  build  them  anew  and  sit  on  a  green 

knoll  apart, 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  107 

With  the  earth  and  the  sky  and  the  ivater  remade 

like  a  casket  of  gold, 
For  my  dreams  of  your  image  that  blossoms  a 

rose  in  the  deeps  of  my  heart. 

Mr.  Yeats  has  essayed  various  forms 
of  poetry — the  dramatic,  the  narrative,  the 
lyrical.  Running  through  play  and  story  and 
lyric  alike  is  the  golden  cord  of  mysticism. 
Mysticism  furnishes  the  cement  binding  the 
various  phases  of  his  talent  together  ;  it  is 
almost  the  hall-mark  proving  the  poem  to  be 
genuinely  of  his  workmanship.  This  mysticism 
which  is  implicit  in  the  poems  becomes  explicit 
and  definite  in  certain  books  of  prose,  but  with 
these  we  are  not  immediately  concerned  in 
this  paper.  Mysticism  is  less  a  creed  than 
an  attitude  of  mind,  a  state  of  the  soul.  It 
is  not  peculiar  to  any  religion,  nor  for  the 
matter  of  that  is  it  incompatible,  apparently, 
with  the  very  minimum  of  orthodox  belief. 
The  Eastern  ascetic,  smeared  with  ashes  and 
clad  in  his  saffron  robe,  seeks  to  attain  Nirvana 
by  the  path  of  mysticism.  The  modern 
Christian  mystic  looks  upon  Nature,  and  recog- 
nizes that  all  the  natural  phenomena  about 
him  are  really  due  to  the  office  and  ministry  of 


108   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

angels.  "  Every  beautiful  prospect,  every  ray 
of  light  and  heat  is,  as  it  were,  the  skirts  of 
their  garments,  the  waving  of  the  robes  of  those 
whose  faces  see  God."  The  mediaeval  mystic 
gazed  into  her  own  soul,  and  found  all  Heaven 
reflected  there  as  in  a  pool  of  clear  water.  She 
saw  Majesty  upon  His  throne,  with  the  Holy 
Mother  standing  with  uncovered  breasts  on 
God's  left  hand,  and  Christ  on  the  right, 
showing  His  still  open  wounds  ;  and  she  adds 
that  so  long  as  sin  endures  on  earth  so  long 
will  those  wounds  remain  open  and  bleeding, 
though  painless  ;  but  that  after  the  Day  of 
Judgment  they  will  heal,  and  it  will  be  as  though 
there  were  rose  leaves  instead  of  wounds.  Mr. 
Yeats  has  no  such  orthodox  creed  to  be  a  lantern 
to  his  steps.  He  is  the  less  fortunate,  for 
the  believer,  at  the  worst,  has  company  in  his 
wanderings,  which  is  better  than  being  solitary 
in  error.  The  Christian  mystic  has  a  centre  from 
whence  to  proceed,  and  on  which  to  rally  ; 
right  or  wrong  we  know  where  he  stands  ;  he 
is  a  figure  with  a  background  ;  a  soldier  armed 
on  a  system,  and  from  a  tested  armoury.  In 
a  word,  he  is  logical  and  complete.  Mr.  Yeats' 
faith  according  to  "  Evelyn  Innes "  is  very 
comprehensive.     There    he    is    introduced    as 


THE  POET  AS  IMYSTIC  109 

a  hater  of  materialism,  and  as  a  believer  in 
all  mythologies.  I  remember  reading  a  story  of 
a  man  who  was  anxious  to  know  the  precise 
white  truth  of  things.  This  dreamer  had  a 
vision,  in  which  he  saw  a  great  rose  window, 
gorgeous  in  colour,  composed  of  many  circles, 
all  filled  with  little  figures  representing  the 
philosophers,  the  teachers,  the  poets,  and  the 
scientists  of  the  world.  A  scroll  issued  from 
every  mouth,  and  on  each  scroll  was  in- 
scribed "  And  this  is  Truth."  Presently  the 
rose  window  began  to  turn  like  a  wheel  before 
his  eyes.  It  whirled  faster  and  faster,  till  as 
the  inquirer  gazed,  the  glorious  colours  became 
merged  in  one  pure  disk  of  white.  Truth  is  the 
sum  of  all  our  human  contradictions.  I  have 
sometimes  wondered  if  the  name  of  this  dreamer 
was  William  Butler  Yeats. 

Mr.  Yeats'  mysticism  is  of  a  personal  char- 
acter, and  I  approach  the  subject  with  some 
diffidence.  He  beUeves,  apparently,  in  a 
collective  body  of  feeUng,  outside  ourselves, 
which  may  represent  the  total  ex|)erience  of 
the  race.  Quietism  will  bring  us  into  closer 
relation  with  this  nucleus  of  feeling  and  emotion, 
and  the  poet  speaks  willingly  of  visions  coming 
from  that  source,  and  of  dreams  which  he 


110  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

afterwards  wrote  down  in  verse.  Vision  and 
dream,  indeed,  are  short  cuts  and  open  doors 
to  the  dim  kingdom  he  loves.  A  deep-seated 
tendency  to  quietism  frequently  enough  has 
the  effect  of  discouraging  action  and  also 
speech.  It  may  even  admit  no  necessary 
connexion  between  the  inner  life  and  the  ac- 
cepted moralities  of  the  day.  Mr.  Yeats  is  no 
exception.  The  activities  of  the  body  and 
all  human  energies  seem  slight  things  in  com- 
parison to  the  vitality  of  the  soul.  He  speaks 
therefore  with  a  certain  contempt  of  "  dusty 
deeds  "  ;  and  in  "  The  Blessed  "  proclaims 
that  "  the  blessedest  soul  in  the  world  went 
nodding  a  drunken  head."  The  old  sea  rover 
of  "  The  Shadowy  Waters,"  and  Dectora  the 
captive  woman  who  loved  him,  put  both  love 
and  life  aside  with  a  measure  of  scorn.  "  As 
to  living,  our  servants  will  do  that  for  us." 
Nature  herself  has  to  be  re-created  in  the 
heart  before  the  stars  can  shine,  the  winds  blow, 
and  the  spices  flow  forth  for  this  fastidious 
visionary,  as  may  be  seen  by  reference  to  "  The 
Two  Trees,"  one  of  the  most  mystical  of  his 
poems.  I  do  not  think  myself  "  The  Two 
Trees  "  to  be  amongst  the  most  liaunting  and 
perfect  of  Mr.   Yeats'   lyrics.     Better  judges 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  111 

than  the  present  writer  appreciate  it  more 
highly  than  he  is  able  to  do.  There  is  no  doubt, 
however,  that  the  substance  and  message  of 
the  poem  are  vitalized  by  the  sincerest  con- 
viction. It  is  of  peculiar  authority  to  those 
who  would  leam  something  of  the  mystic's 
creed.  To  its  author,  as  to  all  visionaries, 
the  world  is  only  a  little  dry  dust,  barren  of 
nourishment  to  the  soul.  The  illusions  about 
us,  which  the  unwary  mistake  for  realities,  are 
but  fatal  images  seen  in  a  magic  mirror.  The 
tree  of  life  bears  but  blackened  leaves,  and  its 
roots  are  hidden  deep  in  snow.  Through  its 
broken  branches  fly  the  ravens  of  thought, 
watching  the  disasters  that  befall  the  spirit  of 
man.  The  only  way  of  escape  is  to  avert  the 
eyes  from  all  this  ugly  ruin.  The  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you.  Make  no  effort  to  right 
wrong,  or  to  set  the  crooked  straight.  Look 
into  your  own  heart,  and  build  the  world 
anew  according  to  your  conception  and  your 
dream. 

Beloved,  gaze  in  thine  own  heart. 
The  holy  tree  is  growing  there ; 

From  joy  the  holy  branches  start. 
And  all  the  trembling  flowers  they  bear. 


112  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

The  changing  colours  of  its  fruit 

Have  dowered  the  stars  with  merry  light ; 
The  surety  of  its  hidden  root 

Has  planted  quiet  in  the  night  ; 
The  shaking  of  its  leafy  head 

Has  given  the  waves  their  melody. 
And  made  my  lips  and  music  wed. 

Murmuring  a  wizard  song  for  thee. 
There,  through  bewildered  branches  go 

Winged  Loves  borne  on  in  gentle  strife, 
Tossing  and  tossing  to  and  fro 

The  flaming  circle  of  our  life. 
When  looking  on  their  shaken  hair. 

And  dreaming  how  they  dance  and  dart, 
Thine  eyes  grow  full  of  tender  care  : 

Beloved,  gaze  in  thine  own  heart. 

Speculations  such  as  some  of  those  set  out 
in  the  preceding  pages  may  be  interesting 
and  harmless  enough  to  the  thinker  who 
holds  his  nature  firmly  on  the  curb,  but  to  the 
ignorant  they  are  death.  They  end  in  sheer 
nihilism,  and  in  paralysis  of  the  whole  body, 
political  and  social.  It  is  fortunate  that 
speakers  of  the  vulgar  tongue  are  not  likely 
to  be  attracted  by  such  doctrines.  Mr.  Yeats 
himself,  we  are  grateful  to  notice,  does  not 


THE  POET  AS  MYSTIC  118 

illustrate  his  every  precept.  His  life  has  been 
one  of  ceaseless  and  beneficent  activity,  and 
his  speech  overflows  through  quite  a  number 
of  books.  But  perhaps  these  are  reproaches 
which  it  is  not  fair  to  level  at  this  one  particular 
phase  of  mysticism.  Very  possibly  some  such 
dangers  are  common  to  all  mysticisms,  and 
form  the  seamy  side  of  Buddhist  and  Christian 
mystic  speculations  as  well  as  of  the  esoteric 
imaginings  of  Mr.  Yeats. 

It  is  not  likely  that  poems  teaching  such 
a  philosophy  will  ever  be  popular.  Neither 
is  it  probable  that  Mr.  Yeats  will  rank  amongst 
the  divinest  poets  of  our  speech.  His  gift  is 
not  rich,  nor  deep,  nor  various  enough  for  such 
supreme  honour  as  this.  It  is  sufficient  dis- 
tinction that  of  all  the  writers  of  our  day 
he  is  the  most  essentially  poetic,  and  best 
illustrates  modern  verse  at  its  farthest  remove 
from  prose. 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS 
CHRISTINA  G.  ROSSETTI 
AND  PAUL  VERLAINE 


I. 

THE  year  1894  should  have  been  addressed 
to  this  country  in  a  black-edged  enve- 
lope, and  it  is  a  fortvmate  thing  that  it 
came  to  an  end  on  December  31 .  Had  it  lasted 
much  longer  English  letters  would  have  become 
blank  as  a  sheet  of  fresh  note-paper.  That  un- 
lucky year  must  bear  the  heavy  responsibility 
of  taking  from  amongst  us  a  historian  like 
Froude,  an  essayist  like  Pater,  a  noveUst  such 
as  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  and  a  poetess 
of  the  value  of  Christina  Rossetti.  It  is  idle 
to  pretend  that  Uterature  did  not  reel  under 
their  loss.  In  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of 
Victor  Hugo's  romances  a  very  pretty  girl 
elects  to  lose  certain  of  her  teeth,  and  with 
them  loses  all  her  attractiveness.  The  difference 
between  January,  1894,  and  January,  1895, 
115 


116  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

was  much  the  difference  in  Fantine's  face  before 
and  after  her  visit  to  the  dentist.  We  must 
take  what  consolation  we  may  from  the  thought 
that  the  supreme  work  of  which  most  of  these 
writers  were  capable  had  been  accomplished. 
Christina  Rossetti  certainly  would  have  pressed 
this  application  to  herself.  She  was  sixty- 
fom:  years  of  age,  and  although  she  died  with 
her  singmg  robes  upon  her,  it  was  her  unalter- 
able conviction  that  song  is  the  prerogative  of 
youth  and  passes  with  the  spring. 

Christina  Georgina  Rossetti  was  born  in 
December,  1830,  the  yoimgest  child  of  an 
Italian  refugee  and  of  a  mother  who  was  half 
Italian  and  half  English  by  blood.  Four 
children  were  born  of  this  marriage,  and  all 
four  are  honourably  esteemed  in  connexion 
with  literature.  The  eldest,  Maria  Francesca, 
was  the  author  of  "  A  Shadow  of  Dante  "  ; 
she  afterwards  entered  an  Anglican  sisterhood. 
Dante  Gabriel  became  the  famous  artist  and 
poet,  a  man  of  mystery,  and  one  of  the  most 
overwhelming  personalities  of  his  day.  William 
Michael,  an  excellent  student  and  critic,  devoted 
his  life  to  very  valuable  and  informing  studies 
of  the  more  prominent  members  of  his  family 
and  their  friends.    Christina,  herself,  was  very 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  117 

near  to  being  the  most  charming  lyric  writer 
of  our  time.  The  wind  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,  and  who  can  say  from  what  source 
this  remarkable  diversity  of  gifts  and  graces 
derived !  Christina  Rossetti,  like  all  her 
family,  matured  early.  The  atmosphere  of 
her  home  was  something  of  an  intellectual 
and  artistic  forcing-house.  At  seventeen 
she  had  written  and  privately  printed  a  little 
volume  of  poems.  Just  out  of  her  teens  she 
was  contributing  to  the  Germ  a  haunting  series 
of  lyrics,  which  exhibit  her  style  absolutely 
matured  in  its  fresh  individuality  ;  and  of  these 
early  lyrics  one^ — or  possibly  two — represents 
her  genius  at  its  sweetest  and  best.  However, 
her  successive  volumes  of  poems,  although 
to  the  popular  taste,  did  not  succeed  to  the 
full  measure  of  their  deserts.  This  was  no 
blame  to  Dante  Rossetti,  whose  eminent 
engineering  talents  were  always  at  his  sister's 
service.  Friends,  influential  and  highly  placed, 
seemed  to  begrudge  her  gifts,  and  almost  to 
discourage  their  exercise,  in  case  they  might 
distract  attention  from  the  work  of  her  more 
celebrated  brother.  Books  pouring  forth  from 
members  of  the  same  family  suggest  to  a 
haphazard  public  the  methods  of  a  factory. 


118   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

rather  than  those  of  the  study.  Troubles  of 
all  sorts  closed  in  upon  her.  She  suffered 
from  private  griefs  and  from  bodily  infirmities. 
A  disfiguring  complaint  of  the  eyes  injured  her 
personal  appearance.  Miss  Rossetti  with- 
drew more  and  more  into  herself.  She  spent 
her  days  in  loving  service  to  an  aged  mother. 
Absorbed  in  religious  exercises  and  in  the 
composition  of  devotional  books,  she  scarcely 
left  her  house,  except  to  attend  the  services 
of  the  Church  to  which  she  so  whole-heartedly 
belonged.  Her  poems  were  written  on  her 
dressing-table,  or  on  the  corner  of  her  wash- 
stand.  At  length  an  incurable  internal 
disease  developed,  and  after  a  long  illness, 
patiently  borne,  this  great  poetess  and  Angli- 
can saint  attained  her  rest  on  December  29, 
1894. 

Poetess  and  saint — these  are  the  two  key- 
notes of  Christina  Rossetti's  character.  Saints 
are  not  a  particularly  numerous  body  in  this 
rough  work-a-day  world  of  oiu:s,  and  England — 
once  upon  a  time  called  the  Isle  of  Saints — 
is  not  more  favoured  than  the  rest  of  Christen- 
dom. With  whatever  illusions  we  start  our 
life's  journey,  most  of  us  soon  give  up  any 
thought  of  distinguishing  ourselves  upon  the 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  119 

paths  of  virtue.  We  are  thankful  if  at  the 
end  of  the  dusty  road  we  have  still  some  rags 
of  honour  clinging  about  us,  like  tattered 
flags.  Christina  Rossetti  shone  Uke  a  good 
deed  in  this  naughty  world,  and  was  one  of 
those  devout  women  who  are  the  adornments 
of  their  Church.  If,  however,  saints  are  few 
and  far  between,  poetesses  have  nearly  reached 
the  vanishing  point.  For  the  purposes  of 
Elnglish  literature  they  may  be  coimted  easily 
upon  the  fingers  of  one  hand,  and  not  exhaust 
the  tale.  No  gift  is  more  common  to  their 
sex  than  the  knack  of  facile  rhyme  ;  no  grace 
seems  more  tantalizingly  beyond  its  reach 
than  the  incommunicable  birtliright  of 
poetry.  I  do  not  say  that  Miss  Rossetti  was 
always  equal  to  her  best  self,  nor  that  her 
garland  consisted  only  of  roses.  But  when  every 
deduction  is  made,  and  after  hearing  all  the 
devil's  advocate  may  urge,  she  remains  easily 
one  of  the  two  most  distinguished  poetesses 
of  the  Victorian  era.  Since,  then,  to  be  either 
saint  or  poet  is  enough  for  glory,  it  is  Christina 
Rossetti's  peculiar,  and  nearly  unique,  dis- 
tinction to  combine  the  double  honour  in  a 
single  person.  There  is  little  doubt  which  of 
these  two  graces  she  would  most  have  coveted — 


120    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

had  it  ever  occurred  to  her  humility  that  she 
might  be  of  the  saints.  Poetry  was  only  an 
incident — a  daily  practice — of  her  years,  but 
the  religious  life  was  her  very  breath.  Devo- 
tional works  were  her  constant  companions ; 
the  Bible  (that  Book  of  the  Consolation  of 
Humanity),  the  "  Imitation,"  St.  Augustine's 
"  Confessions,"  and  Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress ' '  were,  in  particular,  her  intimate  mainstay . 
When  to  an  overstrained  conscience  it  seemed 
possible  that  any  of  her  poems  might  lead  a 
weaker  brother  to  offend,  that  fantastic  concep- 
tion caused  the  deletion  of  the  doubtful  portion 
from  her  books.  Theatres  she  ceased  to  attend 
because  of  their  supposed  effect  on  the  charac- 
ters of  the  performers,  and  chess  she  refused 
to  play  because  she  was  too  keen  upon  winning. 
During  the  course  of  her  life  two  men  asked 
for  the  honour  to  be  called  her  husband.  Both 
were  suitable  proposals,  and  each  in  turn 
would  have  been  accepted  save  for  rehgious 
scruples.  The  friend  of  her  youth  was  a 
Roman  Catholic,  and  therefore  believed  too 
much  ;  the  friend  of  her  womanhood  had  no 
sufficiently  definite  creed,  and  so  believed  too 
little.  She  contented  herself  with  loving  the 
latter  to  her  dying  day.     It  is  sad  to  gather 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  121 

that  this  life  of  unxelaxing  effort  and  worship 
brought  Miss  Rossetti  neither  happiness  in 
this  world  nor  confidence  in  her  election  for 
the  next.  Wliilst  the  average  indifferent 
man  faces  the  future  with  a  cheerful  serenity, 
this  Anglican  saint  almost  feared  to  pass  to 
that  coimtry  where  in  truth  she  had  always 
dwelt. 

Dante  Rossetti  once  remarked  that  all 
poetry  should  be  "  amujsing,"  and  this  in  the 
obvious  meaning  of  the  word  his  sister's  work 
emphatically  is  not.  Many  of  her  poems  are, 
in  fact,  extremely  dull,  and  you  have  to  cross 
weary  stretches  of  sand  to  reach  the  oasis 
with  its  fountain  and  its  palms.  Clearly  she 
did  not  know  her  good  work  from  her  bad, 
and  it  is  unlikely  that  posterity  will  read  her 
as  a  whole.  Then,  too,  the  reading  public  has 
an  incurable  taste  for  cheerfulness,  and  cheer- 
fulness does  not  break  in  very  frequently  here. 
Without  shutting  our  eyes  to  its  brighter 
portions — such,  for  instance,  as  the  triumphant 
"  Birthday " — her  poetry  is  the  revelation 
of  one  who  saw  habitually  "  gold  tarnished 
and  the  grey  above  the  green."  Probably 
the  tendency  to  melancholy  was  consti- 
tutional, but  many  streams  must  have  "swelled 


122   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

the    main    current    before    she    could    have 
written — 

/  hope,  indeed,  hut  hope  itself  is  fear 
Viewed  on  the  sunny  side. 

Again,  should  a  poet  write  stories  in  verse, 
that  portion  is  sure  of  the  first  attention  of  his 
readers.  The  eternal  child  in  all  of  us  cries 
out  for  a  tale.  Christina  Rossetti  incidentally 
composed  narratives  in  rhyme ;  essentially 
she  was  a  lyric  poet.  The  tales  have  both 
imagination  and  movement,  but  they  do  not 
deal  quite  frankly  with  us.  Read  as  pure 
fantasy  they  are  delightful,  but  behind  their 
mufflers  we  seem  to  spy  a  beard.  There  is  a 
general  impression,  for  example,  that  the 
simple-seeming  story  of  "  Goblin  Market  ' 
is  really  a  parable  of  redemption  through  a 
sister's  love,  and  that  "  The  Prince's  Progress  " 
is  not  a  love  tale,  as  it  pretends,  but  is  rather 
an  allegory  of  one  who  was  tempted,  and  who 
served  strange  masters,  and  at  last  was  utterly 
overthrown.  The  impression  doubtless  is 
inaccurate,  for  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the 
present  writer  Christina  Rossetti  said  herself, 
"  I  must  own  that  '  Goblin  Market '  and  the 
'  Prince's    Progress '    were    written    withou': 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  123 

any  allegorical  meaning,  although  I  see  that 
such  may  be  read  into  both  ;  nor  are  you  the 
first  who  has  so  interpreted  '  Goblin  Market.'  " 
But  the  miscliief  is  done.  As  Keats  remarked 
long  ago,  poetry  should  not  come  to  us  ob- 
trusively with  its  hand  in  its  breeches'  pocket, 
and  the  public  has  no  passion  for  allegories. 

Christina  Rossetti's  fame  must  be  based 
ultimately  upon  her  lyrics  and  sonnets  ;  her 
true  gift  was  the  grace  of  song.  Lyrical  writing 
is  the  revelation  of  a  mood,  or  emotion,  in  one 
pure  jet  of  music.  To  be  frankly  oneself,  to 
reveal  personality  without  false  shame  or 
modesty,  is  difficult  enough  in  a  man.  For 
a  woman  it  is  more  than  difficult,  it  is  next 
door  to  impossible.  To  show  in  naked  words 
the  naked  heart,  demands  a  courage  that 
verges  on  the  heroic.  That  is  why,  when  a 
woman  writes  lyrics,  she  sings,  frequently 
enough,  through  the  mask  of  a  man.  Christina 
Rossetti  made  no  such  compromise.  She 
dared  to  be  herself.  She  elected,  in  the  main, 
to  make  the  lyric  the  expression  of  her  spiritual 
life.  Since  she  was  by  conviction  an  adherent 
of  the  Church  of  England,  it  follows  that 
these  lyrics  cannot  be  mistaken  for  the  work 
of   a   member   of  any   other   religious    body 


124    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Anglicanism  always  has  been  a  literary  religion, 
founded  on  the  dignity  and  reserve  of  the 
Bible  and  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  It  is 
therefore  upon  the  more  austere  side  of  Christi- 
anity that  the  poetess  habitually  dwells.  Her 
preference  is  for  the  fast  rather  than  the  festival. 
Occasionally  "  A  Christmas  Carol "  may  rise 
to  her  Ups,  but  by  choice  she  broods  upon 
*'  Advent,"  or  "  Good  Friday,"  or  "  The  Three 
Enemies."  The  shadow  of  the  grave,  the 
apostolic  fear  lest  the  singer  herself  should 
be  a  castaway,  rests  broadly  upon  these  poems, 
and  were  a  motto  desired  by  way  of  summary 
to  her  verse  it  might  almost  be  found  in  the 
words  of  the  "  Religio  Medici  "  :  "  For  the 
world  I  count  it  not  an  Inn  but  an  Hospital, 
and  a  place  not  to  live  but  to  die  in."  How 
often  must  the  sentences  inscribed  on  Akbar's 
mommient  have  risen  in  her  mind  :  "  Said 
Jesus  (on  Whom  be  peace),  this  world  is  a  bridge. 
Pass  over  it,  but  do  not  build  thereon.  He 
who  asks  for  an  hour  asks  for  eternity."  No 
praise  of  mine  can  do  justice  to  Miss  Rossetti's 
lyrics,  to  their  fervent  melody,  to  their  lovely 
phrasing,  and  to  the  passion  of  the  emotion 
they  express.  They  rank  with  their  peers, 
immediately   after  the   supreme   masterpieces 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  125 

of  the  century  that  is  gone.  These  songs  are 
the  revelation  of  a  beautiful  personaUty,  both 
in  its  spiritual  and — in  a  less  degree — ^its  earthly 
relationships.  I  do  not  say  that  each  is  a 
perfect  work  of  art.  At  times  the  central 
fire  has  not  burnt  all  the  slag  away.  Swin- 
burne, coming  after  her,  took  one  or  two  of 
her  original  melodies,  just  to  show  of  what 
they  were  capable  in  the  hands  of  an  imrivalled 
virtuoso.  Something  of  the  same  kind,  one 
day,  will  be  done  to  the  remarkable  poems 
with  which  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy  occupies  his 
illustrious  evening.  Possibly  it  is  the  fact 
that  "  Amor  Mundi  "  was  my  first  introduction 
to  all  this  gift  of  song  which  makes  me  regard 
it  with  peculiar  pleasure.  At  least  its  quota- 
tion may  be  permitted  me,  in  proof  of  the 
inadequacy  of  any  praise. 

"  O  where  are  you  going  with  your  love-locks 
flowing, 
On  the  west  wind  bloioing  along  this  valley 
track  ?  " 
"  The  downhill  path  is  easy,  come  with  me  an 
it  please  ye, 
We  shall  escape  the  uphill  by  never  turning 
back:' 


126  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

So  they  two  went  together  in  glowing  August 
weather. 
The  honey-breathing  heather  lay  to  their  left 
and  right ; 
And  dear  she  was  to  dote  on,  her  swift  feet  seemed 
to  float  on 
The  air  like  soft  twin  pigeons,  too  sportive 
to  alight. 

>»  *  *  * 

"  Oh,  what  is  that  glides  quickly  where  velvet 
flowers  grow  thickly. 
Their  scent  comes  rich  and  sickly  ?  "     "  ^ 
scaled  and  hooded  worm.'*'' 
"  Oh,  whaVs  that  in  the  hollow,  so  pah  I  quake 
to  follow?'' 
"  Oh,  thaVs  a  thin  dead  body  which  waits  the 
eternal  term." 

"  Turn  again,  O  my  sweetest — turn  again,  false 
and  fleetest : 
This  beaten  way  thou  beatest,  I  fear  is  helVs 
own  track." 
'*  Nay,  too  steep  for  hill  mounting ;    nay,  too 
late  for  cost  counting ; 
This  downhill  path  is  easy,  but  there's  no 
turning  back." 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  127 

n. 

At  the  very  time  Christina  Rossetti  was 
writing  the  most  beautiful  devotional  poetry 
of  her  coimtry,  a  voice  could  be  heard  across 
the  Channel  equally  urgent  and  true.  The 
religious  poems  of  Paul  Verlaine  are  as  poignant 
as  the  lyrics  of  the  English  poetess,  and  capable 
judges  assert  that  in  their  fashion  they  are 
excelled  by  none  in  the  French  language. 
Beyond  their  common  faith  and  their  gift  of 
devotional  song,  the  two  writers  had  abso- 
lutely no  meeting-ground.  Indeed,  had  some 
ironic  dramatist  desired  to  depict  a  merry 
and  tragic  contrast  of  similar  gifts,  exhibited 
through  utterly  dissimilar  characters,  he  could 
scarcely  have  gone  beyond  placing  Christma 
Rossetti  and  Paul  Verlaine — ^those  two  Christian 
poets — upon  the  stage  at  one  and  the  same 
moment.  One  was  truly  the  Ufe  hidden  with 
Christ  in  God.  Of  the  other  life  the  less  said 
the  better,  were  it  not  that  the  "  legend  "  is 
too  picturesque  to  be  easily  forgotten.  Ver- 
laine's  prototype  is  not  Christina  Rossetti,  but 
rather  Francis  Villon.  The  more  lurid  mis- 
deeds of  that  mediaeval  singer  are  largely 
discounted  by  the  latest  criticism.    The  shock* 


128   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

ing  confessions  of  the  "  Testaments "  are 
regarded  somewhat  as  a  playful  exercise  of 
the  imaginative  faculty,  and  I,  for  one,  am 
anxious  to  agree,  although  with  doubt  and 
mental  reservation.  Villon  was  a  Bohemian, 
a  jail-bird,  an  associate  of  loose  women,  all  that 
was  bad  ;  only  it  happened  that  this  thoroughly 
undesirable  person  chanced  to  be  the  greatest 
poet  of  his  day.  Possibly,  after  an  interval 
of  four  hvmdred  years.  Fate,  in  playing  her 
game  of  hazard,  dealt  out  much  the  same 
combination  of  cards  upon  the  table. 

PaiU  Verlaine  was  born  in  Metz  in  1844, 
the  son  of  a  French  army  officer — who  died  at 
the  time  the  poet  came  of  age — and  of  an  over- 
fond  Flemish  mother.  On  leaving  school  with 
a  degree,  he  obtained  a  clerkship  in  connexion 
with  the  municipality  of  Paris,  and  devoted 
all  the  time  he  could  abstract  from  his  duties 
to  the  composition  of  verses.  He  was  not 
the  only  Frenchman  to  cultivate  literature 
whilst  in  public  employment.  Copp6e,  Mau- 
passant, and  Huysmans  were  all  in  Govern- 
ment or  municipal  offices,  and  many  a  story  and 
many  a  novel  were  written  on  official  paper 
and  in  office  hours.  For  some  obscure  reason 
singing  birdSj'r^both  in  England  and  France, 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  129 

are  frequently  caged  in  the  various  depart- 
ments   of    the    Civil    Service.      At    intervals 
Verlaine  published  slender  volumes  of  verses, 
of  a   singular   music,    which    attracted   some 
attention.     One  of  these,  "  La  Bonne  Chanson," 
was  the  outcome  of  his  marriage.    This  did  not 
prove  permanently  successful,  for  he  did  not 
shine  in  the  role  of  a  married  man.    Then 
Verlaine  disappeared  from  Paris  and  his  cus- 
tomary haunts  for  years.    During  a  portion 
of  that  period  he  was  in  prison  in  Belgium 
for    cittempted    homicide.    He    also    essayed 
the  moral  instruction  of  youth  in  an  EngUsh 
school.      When    Verlaine    returned    to    Paris 
he  was  Bohemian  through  and  through.    His 
associates  were  too  frequently  men  of  little 
character  and  women  of  less.    He  lived  in  a 
squalid  lodging  in  a  low  district.     How  he  lived 
at  all  was  a  mystery,  but  I  suppose  it  was 
partly  by  the  sale  of  his  poems  and  partly  on 
charity.    When  sick  he  sought  the  hospital, 
where — his  story  and  his  gifts  being  known — 
he  was  allowed  to  remain  until  minded  to 
discharge  himself  as  cured.    At  times,  decently 
clothed  and  in  clean  linen,  he  was  taken  by  his 
best  friends  to  London  or  Brussels,  there  to 
lecture   before   distinguished   audiences ;    but 


130  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

always  he  went  back  to  the  old  dreary  life. 
Nothing  could  be  done  to  raise  him  from  his 
surroundings ;  and  in  the  same  manner  as  he 
had  chosen  to  live,  so  he  died  at  the  age  of 
fifty-two  years.  This,  or  something  like  this, 
is  the  lamentable  "legend"  of  one  of  the 
truest  poets  of  our  time. 

There  was  little  enough  in  common  between 
Christina  Rossetti  and  Paul  Verlaine,  between 
the  saintly  recluse  and  the  rolling  stone  of 
dubious  paths ;  nothing,  indeed,  but  their 
faith  and  the  divine  gift  of  song.  Their  in- 
spiration was  never  more  manifest  than  when 
exercised  upon  IjTics  dealing  with  the  spiritual 
life.  It  mattered  little  then  that  the  one  wrote 
upon  her  dressing-table,  and  the  other  upon 
the  marble  slab  of  some  crowded  cafe.  It 
mattered  less  that  to  the  undiscerning  eye 
one  was  a  prim,  silent  lady,  dressed  in  an 
antiquated  black  gown,  and  the  other  a  drunken 
Socrates  without  philosophy  and  without 
self-control.  In  each  case  the  unpromising 
exterior  hid  the  same  excellent  gift.  The 
divine  treasure  surely  was  there,  manifestly 
shining  through  the  earthen  vessel.  After  all 
it  is  of  small  concern  whether  the  chalice  from 
which  we  drink  the  wine  is  of  gold  or  clay. 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  131 

If  the  gem  be  priceless,  why  give  a  thought 
to  the  casket  !  The  religious  poems  of  Christina 
Rossetti  and  Paul  Verlaine  are  gold  thrice 
refined.  They  derive  all  their  sweetness  from 
their  celestial  vintage.  In  them  will  be  found 
the  most  beautiful  religious  poetry  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  most  piercing  and 
poignant  expression  of  the  spiritual  life  in 
modern  verse.  On  that  life  they  gladly  dwelt, 
for  it  is  the  essential  and  elemental  note  of 
their  work.  "  I  sat  down  imder  His  shadow 
with  great  delight,  and  His  fruit  was  sweet 
to  my  taste.  He  brought  me  to  the  ban- 
queting house,  and  His  banner  over  me  was 
love." 

Verlaine's  poetry  was  not  concerned  ex- 
clusively with  devotional  subjects.  Indeed, 
that  devotional  poetry  is  largely  to  be  found 
in  two  later  volumes,  entitled  respectively 
"  Sagesse  "  and  "  Amour."  His  earlier  verses 
dealt  with  quite  other  material.  They  contain 
realistic  descriptions  of  English  and  Belgian 
life  and  landscape.  They  are  occupied  with 
gallant  and  Watteau-like  scenes  of  an  enig- 
matic perversity ;  there  are  love  poems  ad- 
dressed to  mistress  and  wife,  and  occasional 
verses   of   an    intimate    character — such,    for 


132   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

instance,  as  that  justly  celebrated  poem 
(included  in  "  Sagesse  ")  recording  the  remorse 
of  the  prisoner  as  he  considers  his  spoiled  and 
wasted  youth.  These  writings  doubtless  have 
many  faults.  They  were  not  the  work  of  a 
scholar,  even  in  his  mother  tongue.  At  times 
they  are  difficult  to  construe,  so  difficult  that 
one  is  tempted  to  wish  the  task  impossible. 
But  at  least  they  are  the  songs  of  a  reed  through 
which  all  winds  blew  to  music,  to  use  the 
phrase  Tennyson  applied  to  Swinburne.  Ver- 
laine's  poems  are  of  a  strange  and  haunting 
melody,  which  till  then  had  been  unheard 
in  French  verse.  At  times  there  is  a  catch 
in  the  accent,  very  arresting  to  the  ear.  He 
seems  to  sing  false  almost  deUberately,  with 
something  of  the  "  stammer "  the  English 
reader  finds  in  Yeats.  It  was  no  wonder  that 
youthful  symbolists  grouped  themselves  about 
his  flag.  They  had  foimd  a  leader  whose 
words  suggested  more  than  they  actually 
expressed,  and  whose  music  induced  emotions 
beyond  the  notes  of  which  it  was  composed. 

When  we  come  to  the  volume  entitled 
"  Sagesse,"  nothing  of  the  old  Verlaine 
remains,  except  the  music.  The  subjects  are 
altogether    changed.     "  Sagesse "    is    a    book 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  133 

of  religious  verses,  laying  bare  with  the  utmost 
directness  and  simplicity  the  spiritual  life 
of  its  writer.  It  is  essentially  the  work  of  a 
Christian  poet,  who  is  also  a  Catholic.  The 
reasons  which  have  induced  men  to  become 
converts  to  that  venerable  faith  are  various 
and  cogent.  Newman  approached  it  by  way 
of  a  series  of  propositions  as  logical  as  Euclid. 
Huysmans,  again,  by  way  of  a  series  of  dis- 
gusts. I  doubt  whether  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word  there  was  need  for  Verlaine  to  be 
converted  at  all.  He  had  never  lost  his  faith. 
It  was  simply  mislaid.  When  the  deplorable 
circumstances  of  his  life  drove  him  in  upon 
himself,  he  sought  refuge  in  the  old  consola- 
tions which  for  the  time  he  had  neglected. 
Verlaine  was  neither  scholar  nor  philosopher ; 
he  was  only  a  poet.  He  turned  with  proud 
disdain  from  the  anxious  questionings  of  his 
time.  He  desired  to  have  been  born  in  the 
great  days  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  when  France 
was  happy  in  the  shadow  of  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon's  linen  coif,  when  doctors  served  the 
Mass  and  were  content  to  assist  in  the  ofiRces  of 
the  Church.  But,  no,  the  fastidious  dreamer 
recalls  with  horror  that  the  seventeenth  century 
was  Galilean  and  Jansenist.     It  was  tainted 


134   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

with  heresy,  with  Pascal,  and  with  the  dis- 
senters of  Port  Royal.  One  only  period  sufficed 
his  needs — the  Middle  Ages,  monstrous  and 
delicate  (to  use  his  own  inimitable  phrase), 
when  a  king  walked  barefoot  through  the 
Paris  streets,  bearing  the  crown  of  thorns, 
and  the  marvel  of  Chartres  Cathedral  rose, 
not  to  music,  but  to  prayer.  Mysticism — 
the  wonderful  Christian  mysticism — is  im- 
plicit in  every  poem.  All  earth  is  a  parable  and 
a  miracle  as  well.  The  harvest  is  plenteous, 
not  only  to  provide  bread  for  man,  but  also 
the  wafer  for  the  Host.  The  vintage  is  red 
to  make  merry  men's  hearts  ;  yes,  but  rather 
to  brim  the  chalice  with  His  Wine.  Surely 
it  is  not  for  nothing  that  Chartres  stands 
amidst  the  granary  of  France,  and  Rheims  rises 
like  a  benediction  above  her  vines.  Equally 
implicit  is  Verlaine's  conception  of  "  two  only 
absolute  and  luminously  self-evident  beings," 
himself  and  his  Creator,  in  the  world.  To  that 
Creator  the  stricken  soul  approaches  in  im- 
rhymed  verses  of  astonishing  simplicity  and 
straightforwardness.  Thoughts  of  such  striking 
beauty  escape  him,  that  they  seem,  it  has  been 
suggested,  as  if  strays  from  the  "  Imitation." 
Penitential   psalms,    devout   prayers,    acts   of 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  135 

contrition,  canticles  to  the  Virgin,  follow  one 
upon  the  other.  Where  all  is  beautiful, 
perhaps  may  be  singled  out  as  especially  beau- 
tiful and  affecting  a  series  of  sonnets  composed 
in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  the  soul  and 
God.  It  is  a  daring  dramatic  experiment, 
completely  successful.  That,  indeed,  is  its 
only  justification.  The  sequence  commences 
with  an  appeal  by  Christ  for  the  love  of  His 
"  lamentable  friend,"  and  with  a  recapitulation 
of  how  He  had  loved  the  sinner  to  the  death. 
It  continues  with  the  plea  of  the  penitent  that 
because  of  his  frailty  he  dare  not  love  in  return. 
Then  with  the  insistence  of  the  "  Hoimd  of 
Heaven,"  Christ  develops  the  theme  in  sonnet 
after  sonnet — the  necessity  of  love,  the  path 
by  which  it  may  be  attained,  through  con- 
fession, by  means  of  Holy  Commimion,  to  peace 
of  heart  and  final  redemption.  And  the  whole 
concludes  with  its  acceptance  by  the  penitent 
in  hysteria,  and  ecstasy  and  fear.  It  is  im- 
possible to  doubt  that  the  writer's  emotion 
is  genuine.  The  metal  rings  absolutely  true. 
In  Verlaine's  religious  poetry  there  is  none 
of  the  pose  of  neo-Catholicism,  so  common 
in  our  day.  There  is  nothing  derived  simply 
from  an  aesthetic  appreciation  of  incense  and 


186  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

ritual  and  art  needlework.  The  craftsman- 
ship is  that  of  a  great  poet,  but  the  message  is 
that  of  the  convinced  and  persuaded  Christian. 


III. 

Two  Christian  poets.  So  far  as  Christina 
Rossetti  is  concerned  no  one  would  dream  of 
denying  her  the  ascription.  Her  life  and  her 
life's  work  are  absolutely  of  a  piece.  From 
the  tree  you  would  prophesy  with  certainty 
the  fruit  which,  as  a  fact,  hangs  so  thickly  on 
the  branches.  The  case  of  Paul  Verlaine  is 
different,  and  possibly  may  not  be  accepted 
without  hesitation.  It  is  not  very  easy  to 
determine  the  species  of  a  tree  which,  in  its 
season,  put  forth  such  various  fruits.  At 
times  the  burthen  was  wholesome  ;  at  others 
Dead  Sea  apples.  Occasionally  by  a  curious 
and  deliberate  perversity  the  good  fruit  and 
the  bad  grew  side  by  side  upon  the  self-same 
bough.  By  their  fruit  ye  shall  know  them. 
In  this  essay  I  have  kept  my  attention  fixed 
upon  the  Christian  aspect  of  Verlaine's  work. 
To  doubt  its  sincerity  would  be  to  strike  at 
the  root  of  criticism,  and  to  destroy  the  very 


TWO  CHRISTIAN  POETS  187 

canons  of  judgment.  What  Verlaine  suffered 
from  was  the  evil  of  the  divided  mind.  As 
Anatole  France  remarked  in  the  study  of  his 
lamentable  friend,  entitled  "  Gestas  "  :  "He 
has  faith,  simple,  firm,  childlike  faith.  It  is 
works  alone  he  is  lacking  in."  But  to  discuss 
the  relations  between  faith  and  works  is  to 
enter  the  thorniest  path  of  religious  contro- 
versy. By  intellectual  conviction  Verlaine 
was  a  Christian,  and  the  most  permanent 
portion  of  his  poetry  witnesses  to  his  belief. 
I  consider  him,  therefore,  a  Christian  poet. 
If  his  practice  did  not  always  square  with  his 
creed,  which  amongst  us  can  cast  the  first  stone  I 
In  an  Eastern  apologue  it  is  related  that  a 
crowd  was  once  gathered  about  a  dead  dog  lying 
in  the  gutter.  One  drew  attention  to  the 
rope  about  his  neck,  concluding  that  he  was  a 
thief ;  another  derided  his  torn  and  mangy 
hide  ;  a  third  pointed  out  that  he  was  only  a 
worthless  mongrel.  But  a  certain  Teacher — 
in  Whom,  as  it  chanced,  Paul  Verlaine  believed 
— passing  that  way,  stopped  for  a  moment,  and 
ere  He  proceeded,  remarked  softly,  "  Pearls 
are  not  equal  to  the  whiteness  of  his  teeth." 


A  CATHOLIC  POET 
FRANCIS  THOMPSON 
AND    HIS    LEGEND 


THERE  are  many  advantages  for  an 
artist  in  being  the  proprietor  of  a 
"  legend."  It  is  the  equivalent — 
and  more  than  the  equivalent — of  the  romantic 
appearance,  to  those  who  know  by  the  ear 
and  not  through  the  eye.  It  piques  the  curiosity 
of  the  crowd,  and  gives  a  factitious  interest 
to  things  which  otherwise  would  not  attract 
its  attention.  The  idler  in  the  market  may 
care  nothing  for  the  song,  but  he  gapes  readily 
enough  upon  the  singer,  especially  should 
gossip  be  concerned  with  the  privacies  of  the 
singer's  life.  Frequently  enough  he  recognizes 
the  performer  to  be  a  singer  by  reason  of  this 
noble  or  grotesque  attitude,  rather  than  by  the 
thrilling  voice.  The  "  legend  "  may  be  lurid 
or  tragic  or  squalid,  but  it  has  come  to  be 
demanded,  and  the  poet  frequently  responds. 
The  rdle  of  the  blameless  ratepayer  is  not  for 
139 


140   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

him,  however  greatly  he  may  yearn.  The 
poet  has  much  of  the  feminine  in  his  character, 
and  we  all  recognize  how  woman  can  flood 
the  street  with  living  copies  of  Burne-Jones  or 
Beardsley,  or  whoever  else  may  be  the  fashion- 
able artist  of  the  day.  This  predilection  for 
interesting  details  is  responsible  for  odd  en- 
thusiasms. Villon,  for  instance,  is  doubtless 
a  great  poet,  very  probably  the  typical  French 
poet  of  the  Middle  Age.  His  poems  are  largely 
written  in  slang — thieves'  slang  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  extremely  difficult  to  read.  But  he 
was  a  student  of  the  Paris  University,  who 
also  stole  ducks  from  the  city  moat.  He 
robbed,  he  joined  the  company  of  an  interesting 
guild  of  vagabonds,  for  whom  archers  looked 
about  carefully  with  lanterns,  he  committed 
manslaughter,  he  rotted  in  prison,  he  sweated  in 
fear  of  death.  As  a  consequence  his  standing 
as  a  poet  is  well  esteemed  of  many  who, 
without  the  picturesque  legend,  would  have 
been  attracted  but  little  by  mediaeval  French 
verse.  Again,  take  the  singer  who  in  modern 
times  reproduced  Villon's  life  with  an  overmuch 
fidelity.  Doubtless  Verlaine  was  a  divine 
poet,  but  the  divinity  showed  less  in  his  daily 
life  than  in  his  songs.     He  is  therefore  a  better 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  141 

known  figure  in  the  market-place  than  certain 
excellent  contemporaries  who  presented  a  more 
reputable  and  less  disordered  front.  However, 
it  is  not  necessary  that  the  legend  should 
be  lurid  to  ensure  attention.  It  is  sufficient 
so  it  be  romantic  or  mysterious  or  even  squalid. 
Byron  flaunted  through  Europe  the  pageant 
of  his  bleeding  heart.  The  chatter  about 
Harriet  keeps  Shelley's  memory  green.  The 
love  letters  of  John  Keats  and  Robert  Browning 
preserve  their  verses  sweet.  The  romantic 
story  of  the  burial  by  Rossetti  of  his  manu- 
script poems  in  his  wife's  coffin,  between  her 
cheek  and  hair,  was  responsible  for  much 
of  the  public  curiosity  in  that  withdrawn  and 
strange  personality.  It  did  not  occur  to  us 
how  deeply  the  exhumation  of  the  body,  and 
the  subsequent  publication  of  the  poems, 
tarnished  the  beauty  of  the  legend.  We  were 
yovmg,  and  our  eyes  were  touched  with  romantic 
illusion.  And  who  can  say  what  proportion  of 
the  popular  success  of  the  book  of  poems  which 
most  nearly  approached,  and  perhaps  actually 
rivalled,  the  success  of  Rossetti's,  was  owed 
to  the  story  of  the  tragic  and  squalid  life  of 
its  author  ?  No  concealment  was  made  of  the 
matter.    The    material    was    used    for    bold 


142  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

advertisement,  and  for  once  poetry  sold  like 
a  sporting  novel,  and  was  reviewed  in  the  daily 
press  at  the  length  usually  reserved  for  the 
latest  musical  comedy.  Let  there  be  no 
mistake.  Francis  Thompson's  book  was  beauti- 
ful, and  deserved  all  the  success  and  the  praise 
it  received,  and  both  were  given  in  no  grudging 
measure,  even  if  not  to  the  author's  opinion 
of  its  value.  But  much  of  its  popularity  was 
due  to  quite  other  causes  than  the  intrinsic 
merits  of  the  contents.  Poetry — beautiful 
poetry — FitzGerald's  "  Omar  IChayyam,"  for 
example — ^has  fallen  dead  at  publication,  and 
this  simply  because  it  elected  to  go  without 
the  meretricious  allurement  of  the  romantic 
egend.  The  British  public — God  bless  it — 
has  no  love  for  poetry,  and  cheerfully  passes 
it  by,  save  for  some  purely  adventitious  attrac- 
tion. 

The  true  story  of  the  life  of  Francis  Thompson, 
with  certain  obvious  reticences,  has  recently 
been  given  to  the  world  by  Mr.  Everard 
Meynell.  It  is  very  fitting  that  the  poet's 
biography  should  be  written  by  a  member 
of  that  family  which  alone  made  Thompson's 
life  liveable,  and  whose  generous  and  untiring 
charities   ensured   the  production  of  all  this 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  143 

wealth  of  song.  The  one  objection  to  Mr. 
Everard  Meynell's  book  is  that  modesty  would 
not  permit  him  to  thank  his  father  and  mother 
in  the  name  of  English  letters  for  the  treasure 
they  have  added  to  its  store.  The  title-page 
of  Francis  Thompson's  poems  should  really 
bear  not  his  name  only,  but  those  of  Wilfrid  and 
Alice  Meynell  as  well. 

Francis  Thompson  was  born  at  Preston  in 
1859,  the  son  of  a  homoeopathic  doctor,  who 
was  a  convert  to  Rome.  This  medical  man 
had  the  unprofessional  habit  of  baptizing  those 
infants  he  assisted  into  the  world.  Later 
his  son  was  to  be  reproached  for  his  inability 
to  keep  theology  out  of  the  compass  of  his  art. 
A  devout  child,  he  was  intended  for  the  priest- 
hood, and  sent  to  St.  Cuthbert's  College,  Ushaw. 
At  that  time  the  college  was  not  considered 
a  particularly  literary  institution.  Its  motto 
was  action  rather  than  words.  Now  the  school 
may  boast  Hearn  and  Thompson  amongst  its 
scholars,  though  their  destinies  were  separated 
by  wide  seas,  and  still  wider  and  deeper  seas 
of  thought.  Thompson  made  little  mark 
at  class.  He  was  observed  for  his  comic 
verses,  and  for  a  practice  of  reading  and  copying 
poetry  in  the  library  when  other  boys  were 


144   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

at  games.  His  superiors  reported  reluctantly, 
at  the  end  of  his  course,  that  he  had  no  vocation 
for  the  Church,  and  this  decision  they  based 
on  the  grounds  of  indolence  and  nervousness. 
The  child  is  indeed  father  of  the  man.  These 
characteristics  remained  with  Thompson  to  the 
end  of  his  days.  In  the  trembling  hand  of  his 
last  months  he  wrote  out  in  big  capitals  on 
pages  torn  from  exercise  books,  such  texts 
as  were  calculated  to  frighten  him  into  his 
clothes.  "  Thou  wilt  not  lie  abed  when  the 
last  trump  blows,"  "  Thy  sleep  with  the 
worms  will  be  long  enough,"  and  so  on.  These 
he  pinned  to  his  wall,  but  they  were  ineffectual. 
The  dying  poet  remained  the  very  lad  accused 
of  unconquerable  indolence  at  Ushaw  thirty 
years  before.  His  education  at  Ushaw,  how- 
ever, left  a  deep  impress  on  both  thought  and 
poetry.  Wise  are  those  philosophers  who 
would  sacrifice  all,  so  they  might  shape  the 
child  when  his  mind  is  malleable  and  enduring. 
Eton  would  have  given  Thompson  his  Latin,  but 
his  Liturgy  was  more  important.  His  singing 
gown  was  a  vestment,  and  he  learnt  its  fashion- 
ing at  college.  One  of  the  most  liturgical  and 
definitely  Catholic  of  his  poems,  the  "Assumpta 
Maria,"  was  remembered  from  his  schooldays 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  145 

at  St.  Cuthbert's.  "  No  Ushaw  man  need  be 
told  how  eagerly  all,  both  young  and  old, 
hailed  the  coming  of  May  1.  For  that  day, 
in  the  Seminary  was  erected  a  colossal  altar 
at  the  end  of  the  ambulacrum  nearest  the 
belfry,  fitted  and  adorned  by  loving  zeal.  Before 
this,  after  solemn  procession  from  St.  Aloysius' 
with  lighted  tapers,  all  assembled,  professors 
and  students,  and  sang  a  Marian  hjnnin.  In 
the  college  no  less  solemnity  was  observed. 
At  a  quarter  past  nine  the  whole  house, 
from  President  downwards,  assembled  in  the 
ante-chapel,  before  our  favourite  statue.  A 
hynrn,  selected  and  practised  with  great  care, 
was  sung  in  alternate  verses  by  the  choir 
in  harmony,  and  the  whole  house  in  unison. 
Singing  Our  Lady's  Magnificat,  we  filed  into 
St.  Cuthbert's,  and  then,  as  in  the  Seminary, 
Benediction  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  followed. 
For  thirty-one  days,  excepting  Sundays  and 
holy  days,  this  inspiring  ceremonial  took 
place — its  memory  can  never  be  effaced." 

Returning  home  from  Ushaw  about  the  age 
of  eighteen  years,  for  six  more  Thompson 
attended  as  a  medical  student  at  Owens 
College,  Manchester.  For  a  doctor  he  had 
fewer  qualifications  than  for  a  priest.  Indolent, 

K 


146  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

slovenly  in  dress — "  he  would  even  leave  his 
father's  reputable  doorstep  with  tintied  laces 
dragging  their  length  on  the  pavement  past 
the  windows  of  curious  and  critical  neighbours  " 
— indifferent  to  his  profession,  he  neglected 
classes,  and  devoted  the  time  so  made  his  own 
to  the  reading  of  poetry  in  public  libraries. 
At  this  time,  too,  during  his  early  courses  at 
Owens  College,  his  mother,  without  any  known 
cause  or  purpose,  gave  him  a  copy  of  De 
Quincey's  "  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium 
Eater."  A  more  deplorable  present  was  never 
made  by  mother  to  son,  and  had  its  issue 
been  foreseen  she  would  have  cut  off  her  right 
hand  rather  than  proffered  the  gift.  Hence- 
forth Thompson  was  in  the  snare  of  the  fowler, 
and  was  destined  to  reproduce  on  earth  the 
very  tragedy  of  the  great  master  of  elaborated 
prose.  So  startling  is  the  likeness,  each  to 
each,  that  it  is  less  resemblance  than  plagiarism. 
Mr.  Meynell's  treatment  of  the  results  of  the 
laudanum  habit  upon  Thompson  is  frank,  but 
scarcely  frank  enough.  He  deals  simply  and 
straightforwardly  with  the  physical  conse- 
quences of  the  indulgence  :  "  On  the  one  hand 
it  staved  off  the  assaults  of  tuberculosis;  it 
gave  him  the  wavering    strength  that  made 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  147 

life  just  possible  for  him,  whether  on  the 
streets  or  through  all  those  other  distresses 
and  discomforts  that  it  was  his  character  deeply 
to  resent  but  not  to  remove  by  any  normal 
courses  ;  if  it  could  threaten  physical  degrada- 
tion he  was  able  by  conquest  to  tower  in  moral 
and  mental  glory.  It  made  doctoring  or  any 
sober  course  of  life  even  more  impractical 
than  it  was  already  rendered  by  native  in- 
capacities, and  to  his  failure  in  such  careers 
we  owe  his  poetry.  On  the  other  hand,  it  dealt 
with  him  remorselessly  as  it  dealt  with  Coleridge 
and  all  its  consumers.  It  put  him  in  such 
constant  strife  with  his  own  conscience,  that 
he  had  even  to  hide  himself  from  himself.  It 
killed  in  him  the  capacity  for  acknowledging 
those  duties  to  his  family  and  friends,  which, 
had  his  heart  not  been  in  shackles,  he  would 
have  owned  with  no  ordinary  ardour."  But 
of  the  stringent  efforts  made  by  Thompson  to 
break  with  the  vice  we  learn  little.  Whether 
his  recurrent  visits  to  religious  houses  in  later 
years,  presumably  for  some  such  purpose,  were 
really  struggles  of  reclamation  we  are  left  in 
doubt.  Above  all  the  interaction  of  the 
drug  habit  upon  his  genius,  the  question  as  to 
whether  it  hindered  or  inspired,  whether  it 


148   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

was  in  any  way  responsible  for  the  poet's 
fear  lest  the  divine  gift  of  song  had  left  him 
and  that  he  was  forsaken  indeed — these  are 
subjects,  fraught  with  interest,  of  which  Mr. 
Meynell  must  surely  have  much  inner  know- 
ledge, and  yet  either  deliberately  passes  by  or 
else  deals  with  as  shortly  as  possible.  Repeated 
failures  made  it  clear  to  Thompson  that  any 
thought  of  a  medical  career  must  be  abandoned. 
His  knowledge  of  literature  suggested  to  him 
joining  the  army  like  Coleridge,  but  the  odd 
recruit  failed  in  the  business,  just  as  he  had 
failed  in  some  other  unpromising  professions. 
In  November  1885,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six, 
he  set  off  to  London,  with  no  hope  in  his 
heart,  but  with  Blake  and  -^schylus  in  his 
pockets ;  not,  like  Whittington,  to  seek  a 
fortune,  but  merely  for  the  right  to  exist.  Then 
for  two  years  and  six  months  was  enacted 
beneath  the  astonished  stars  a  tragedy  of  the 
London  streets.  A  gentleman,  a  scholar,  a 
devout  and  shrinking  soul,  a  poet  of  genius 
was  in  turn  a  bookseller's  collector,  a  boot- 
black, a  hawker  of  matches.  His  calling  was 
literally  a  calling  of  cabs.  He  endured  days 
and  nights  of  human  dereliction.  He  slept 
in  arches  and  in  common  lodging-houses  ;    he 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  149 

haunted  the  Embankment,  and  in  watches 
of  the  night  marked  the  traffic  of  Jacob's 
ladder  pitched  between  Heaven  and  Charing 
Cross.  In  such  places  Thompson  learned  the 
bitter  knowledge  he  was  later  to  put  to  such 
striking  use  when  reviewing  General  Booth's 
"  Darkest  England."  He  knew  at  first  hand, 
and  not  by  hearsay,  of  a  "  life  which  is  not  a 
life  ;  to  which  food  is  as  the  fuel  of  hunger  ; 
sleep,  our  common  sleep,  precious,  costly  and 
falUble,  as  water  in  a  wilderness  ;  in  which 
men  rob  and  women  vend  themselves — ^for 
fourpence."  It  was  characteristic  of  the 
reticence  of  the  man  that  Thompson  made 
no  effort  to  escape  from  his  inferno.  He 
kept  away  from  the  relatives  he  had  in  London, 
and  did  not  trouble  to  collect  the  trifling  allow- 
ance sent  to  a  post-office  by  his  father.  He 
accepted  kindness  from  but  two  persons  diuing 
those  tragic  years.  The  one  was  an  evangeUcal 
bootmaker,  named  McMaster,  who  embarked 
on  a  ventiu-ous  friendship  in  Wardour  Street 
with  the  inquiry — the  resented  inquiry — "  Is 
yovu:  soul  saved  ?  "  The  other  friend  was  a 
girl  of  the  town,  who,  when  the  oldest  pro- 
fession in  the  world  permitted,  "  gave  out  of 
her  scant  and  pitiable  opulence,  consisting  of  a 


150  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

room,  warmth  and  food  and  a  cab  thereto." 
In  that  Chelsea  shelter  she  was  at  once  sister 
and  mother  to  the  waif  beneath  her  roof. 
She  protected  him  until  he  found  help  more 
potent  than  hers,  and  then  disappeared,  saying 
that  she  had  always  known  him  to  be  a  genius, 
but  that  their  friendship  would  be  misunder- 
stood. Try  as  he  might,  Thompson  never 
succeeded  in  meeting  that  lady  again. 

Thompson's  salvation  was  achieved,  as  it 
were,  in  his  own  despite ;  never  was  human 
derelict  less  anxious  to  be  piloted  into  harbour. 
"  His  feet  were  in  the  gutter,  but  his  thoughts 
were  with  the  stars."  He  had  pushed  through 
the  letter-box  of  Merry  England — a  Roman 
Catholic  magazine,  edited  by  Mr.  Wilfrid 
Meynell — an  essay  on  "  Paganism  Old  and  New," 
and  also  a  group  of  poems,  including  "  Dream- 
Tryst."  The  manuscript  was  exceedingly  unin- 
viting to  eye  and  hand.  Its  crumpled  and 
dirty  condition,  indeed,  caused  it  to  be  pigeon- 
holed for  some  six  months.  Then  Thompson's 
good  angel  jogged  the  editor's  elbow.  The 
contributions  were  appreciated  at  their  value, 
and  the  editor  did  his  best  to  get  into  touch 
with  his  elusive  correspondent.  For  some 
time  he  was  unsuccessful,  and  the  story  of 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  151 

the  circumstances  leading  to  their  actual 
meeting — if  not  quite  so  romantic  as  that  given 
by  a  certain  well-informed  writer  at  the  time 
of  the  poet's  death — is  sufficiently  striking. 
Possibly  the  account  given  in  the  official  life  is 
a  trifle  expiu*gated.  "  My  father,  being  in  his 
workroom,  was  told  that  Mr.  Thompson  wished 
to  see  him.  Then  the  door  opened,  and  a  strange 
hand  was  thrust  in.  The  door  closed,  but 
Thompson  had  not  entered.  Again  it  opened, 
again  it  shut.  At  the  third  attempt  a  waif 
of  a  man  came  in.  No  such  figure  had  been 
looked  for  ;  more  ragged  and  unkempt  than  the 
average  beggar,  with  no  shirt  beneath  his  coat 
and  bare  feet  in  broken  shoes,  he  found  my 
father  at  a  loss  for  words."  Of  Mr.  Meynell's 
delicate  consideration  and  infinite  patience  in 
dealing  with  tliis  forlorn  and  sensitive  wretch, 
"  one  can  only,  like  Cordelia,  speak  by  silence." 
Thompson  had  no  stomach  for  charity,  and 
no  capacity  for  self-help.  He  would  have  sunk 
stoically  a  yard  from  the  shore,  without  a 
struggle  and  without  a  cry.  After  prolonged 
entreaties  he  consented  to  enter  a  private 
hospital,  where  for  the  time  being  the  laudanum 
habit  was  broken  off.  Then  he  was  put  with  the 
monks  of  Storrington  Priory,  whilst  the  pangs  of 


152   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

abstinence  seemed  to  feed  and  quicken  the  springs 
of  poetry  within.  Song  gushed  from  the  rock 
at  the  stroke  of  the  rod,  and  much  of  his 
finest  work  is  of  this  period.  Prose  alternated 
with  poetry.  The  "  Hotmd  of  Heaven  "  and  the 
elaborate  "  Essay  on  Shelley "  are  both  of 
the  same  date.  These  yet  remain  his  master- 
pieces in  verse  and  prose.  In  his  own  wonderful 
phrases  they  are  indeed  attar  of  poetry,  and  a 
very  fuming  brazier  of  imagery. 

In  1893  the  long-expected  book  of  "  Poems  " 
appeared,  a  handsome  volume  in  brown  boards, 
with  a  frontispiece  by  Mr.  Laurence  Housman. 
The  way  was  well  prepared  to  attract  public 
attention.  The  romantic  story  of  this  stricken 
life  was  exploited  in  the  press  for  some  time 
previous  to  publication,  and  the  curiosity 
of  the  market-place  was  studiously  aroused. 
The  volume  was  reviewed  widely,  and  was 
received  with  a  chorus  of  praise.  It  ran  through 
many  editions.  Thompson,  however,  was  not 
satisfied.  More  oddly,  his  friends  do  not 
seem  to  be  contented  either.  Mr.  Everard 
Meynell  thinks  it  well,  even  at  a  distance  of 
twenty  odd  years,  to  recall  that  Lang  and 
Mr.  Gosse  had  but  a  modified  enthusiasm 
for   much   of   this   poetry.    These   gentlemen 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  158 

were  certainly  entitled  to  express  their  opinion, 
even  though  it  may  not  jump  with  Mr.  Meynell's 
or  mine.  Such  criticism,  after  all,  was  but 
a  drop  of  gall  in  an  ocean  of  eau  sucree.  Is  it 
permitted  me  to  hint  that  Thompson  appreciated 
his  own  poetry  to  its  utmost  worth  !  Personally 
I  rate  that  value  very  high  indeed,  as  may  appear 
before  the  conclusion  of  this  paper.  But  the 
poet  expressed  his  assurance  of  his  genius  per- 
haps a  trifle  in  excess  of  modesty  and  a  little 
too  willingly.  He  emphasized  it  in  poetry,  in 
letters  and  in  conversation.  "  I  absolutely  think 
that  my  poetry  is  greater  than  any  work  by  a  new 
poet  which  has  appeared  since  Rossetti,  unless 
indeed  the  greater  work  to  which  the  critic 
referred  was  Mrs.  Meynell's."     Or  again, 

Before  mine  own  elect,  stood  I, 

And  said  to  Death,  "  Not  these  shall  die" 

I  issued  mandate  royally. 
I  bade  Decay,  "  Avoid  and  fly  ; 

For  I  am  fatal  unto  thee." 

I  sprinkled  a  few  drops  of  verse, 

And  said  to  Ruin,  "  Quit  thy  hearse  "  : 

To  my  loved,  "  Pale  not,  come  with  me  ; 
I  will  escort  thee  down  the  years. 

With  me  thou  waWst  immortally." 


154  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

In  Mr.  Wilfred  Whitten's  obituary  notice  of 
Francis  Thompson  he  tells :  "  Thompson  knew 
that  above  the  grey  London  tumult,  in  which 
he  fared  so  ill,  he  had  hung  a  golden  bell  whose 
tones  would  one  day  possess  men's  ears.  He 
believed  that  his  name  would  be  symphonized 
on  their  lips  with  Milton  and  Dryden  and 
Keats.  This  he  told  me  himself  in  words  too 
quiet,  obscure,  and  long  ago  for  record."  It 
may  be  so  ;  and  yet  somehow  or  other,  true  or 
not,  how  infinitely  one  prefers  the  modesty 
of  Keats'  reticent  phrase :  "I  think  I  shall 
be  among  the  English  poets  after  my  death." 

Francis  Thompson  published  two  further 
volumes  of  verse — "Sister  Songs"  and  "New 
Poems."  The  former  was  composed  previously 
to  much  of  the  contents  of  the  famous  book 
of  1893  ;  the  latter  was  of  a  subsequent  date. 
Neither  of  these  volumes  repeated  the  pheno- 
menal success  achieved  at  a  first  venture.  Of 
"  Sister  Songs  "  only  349  copies  were  sold  in 
twelve  months,  and  the  first  edition  was  pro- 
curable but  the  other  day.  The  sale  of  "  New 
Poems "  was  infinitely  worse.  Five  copies 
only  were  disposed  of  during  the  first  half  of 
1902,  and  the  author  gained  exactly  six  shillings 
in  royalties   during  a  period   of  six  months. 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  155 

Thompson's  friends  seem  inclined  to  impute 
this  failure  to  the  inability  of  Protestant 
lungs  to  breathe  the  Catholic  air  of  his  poetry. 
No  incense-heavy  atmosphere  hindered  the 
sturdy  Protestant  from  delighting  in  the 
earliest  chapel  dedicated  by  the  poet.  The 
fifty  thousand  copies  sold  of  a  cheap  edition  of 
the  "  Hound  of  Heaven  "  were  not  all  bought 
by  his  co-religionists.  The  true  cause  is  not 
obscure.  The  poetry  was  not  so  fresh  nor 
so  beautiful  as  of  old  ;  whilst  neither  in  matter 
nor  in  manner  had  Thompson  made  any  con- 
cession to  the  weaker  brother  in  the  delivery 
of  his  message  of  mysticism  and  his  strange 
gospel  of  stark  renunciation. 

Thompson  was  persuaded  that  Ixis  genius  had 
left  him.  He  turned  to  journalism  for  daily 
bread,  and  familiarized  long-suffering  editors 
with  those  habits  of  procrastination  and 
delay  which  had  procured  him  his  reputation 
at  Ushaw.  Their  only  consolation  was  the 
knowledge  that  in  the  end  they  would  receive 
work  none  but  he  was  competent  to  give.  His 
method  of  reviewing  was  unusual.  The  notice 
would  be  written  in  pencil  beneath  a  street 
lamp,  or  near  the  flare  of  a  second-hand  book- 
shop.   The  reviewer  would  then  hasten  in  before 


# 


156  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

the  shop  closed  to  sell  the  book.  This  was 
done  to  procure  money  for  the  secret  drug  to 
which  he  had  long  returned.  Like  Coleridge, 
who,  voluble  on  all  else,  kept  absolute  silence 
on  the  subject  of  his  vice,  Thompson  never 
mentioned  his  practice  to  his  dearest  friend. 
The  habit  was  the  ruin  of  friendship,  and  of 
family  ties.  It  rendered  its  victim  more 
helpless  in  the  everyday  affairs  of  life  than  even 
nature  intended  him  to  be.  It  necessitated  that 
dreary  round  of  second-rate  lodging-houses 
constituting  his  only  home.  It  set  the  solitary, 
not  in  families,  but  in  an  added  solitude  of 
conscience  and  choice.  Thompson  went  his 
own  way  uncomplainingly.  He  practised  as 
well  as  preached  his  doctrine  of  renunciation. 
He  was  always  in  light  marching  order  to  obey 
the  summons  whenever  it  should  come.  Never 
was  man  who  carried  fewer  of  the  impedimenta 
of  life  about  him.  Alone  he  lived,  and  in  the 
hospital — characteristically  enough — alone  he 
died  on  November  13,  1907.  When  his  effects 
were  gone  through  after  his  death  they  were 
found  to  consist  of  a  box  which  contained 
sundry  unopened  letters  and  some  worn-out 
pipes,  together  with  a  copy  of  his  first  book 
of  "  Poems  "  wherein  was  preserved  the  poppy 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  157 

picked  and  given  to  him  by  Miss  Monica 
Meynell  at  Friston  so  many  years  before. 

A  "  legend  "  such  as  the  above  may  prove 
a  short  cut  to  glory,  but  it  has  to  be  paid  for 
at  a  very  great  price. 

There  are  few  allusions  in  Thompson's  poetry 
to  the  painful  circumstances  of  his  life.  These 
circumstances  darken  the  whole  of  his  poetry, 
as  they  saddened  his  outlook  on  man.  They 
are  seldom  specifically  mentioned,  but  they 
colour  all  he  wrote. 

For  ever  the  songs  I  sing  are  sad  with  the  songs 

I  never  sing. 
Sad  are  sung  songs,  but  how  more  sad  the  songs 

we  dare  not  sing. 

Occasionally,  however,  his  rigid  reticence 
breaks  down.  "  Sister  Songs,"  for  example, 
dedicated  to  two  innocent  girls,  happy  as 
spring  flowers,  suddenly  tells,  with  piercing 
poignancy,  the  story  of  that  other  flower, 
fallen  from  spring's  coronal  and  blown  withering 
through  the  city  streets.  It  records  how  this 
brave,  sad,  and  loving  girl  gave  of  her  scanty 
pittance  to  him,  a  stranger,  that  he  might 
eat ;     then    fled,    a    trackless    fugitive.    The 


158  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

emotion  of  the  wonderful  passage  is  heightened 
to  an  almost  mibearable  degree  by  the  dramatic 
contrast  of  the  delicately  nurtured  child,  to 
whom  the  verses  are  spoken,  with  the  girl 
whose  innocency  only  God  can  give  again, 
when  He  restores  the  years  that  the  locusts 
have  eaten.  But  once  more  did  Thompson 
write  of  his  experiences  during  those  three 
tragic  years  at  this  same  passionate  pitch. 
Amongst  the  poems  found  with  his  papers  after 
death  was  that  called  "  In  No  Strange  Land," 
and  carrying  the  motto,  by  way  of  sub-title, 
"  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you."  The 
editor  of  the  book  of  "  Selected  Poems  " — 
bearing  appositely  enough  upon  its  cover  the 
crown  of  thorns  intertwined  with  the  poet's 
laurel — rightly  says  that  had  Francis  Thompson 
lived,  he  might  yet  have  worked  upon  it  to 
remove  here  a  defective  rhyme,  there  an 
unexpected  elision.  But  no  altered  mind  would 
he  have  brought  to  the  purport  of  it ;  for 
in  these  triumphing  stanzas  we  hold  in  retro- 
spect, as  did  he,  those  days  and  nights  of 
human  dereliction  he  spent  beside  London's 
river,  and  in  the  shadow — but  all  radiance  to 
him— of  Charing  Cross. 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  169 

Not  where  the  ■wheeling  systems  darken, 
And  our  benumbed  conceimng  soars  ! 

The  drift  of  pinions,  would  we  hearken. 
Beats  at  our  own  clay-shuttered  doors. 

The  angels  keep  their  ancient  places  ; 

Turn  but  a  stone,  and  start  a  wing  ! 
^Tis  ye,  His  your  estrangM  faces. 

That  miss  the  many-splendoured  thing. 

But  {when  so  sad  thou  canst  not  sadder) 
Cry  ; — and  upon  thy  so  sore  loss 

Shall  shine  the  traffic  of  Jacobus  ladder 
Pitched  betwixt  Heaven  and  Charing  Cross. 

Yea,  in  the  night,  my  soul,  my  daughter, 
Cry — clinging  Heaven  by  the  hems  ; 

And  lo,  Christ  walking  on  the  water 
Not  of  Genesareth,  but  Thames. 

The  Catholic  imprint  is  stamped  far  more 
deeply  upon  Thompson's  work  than  the  hall- 
mark of  "  Darkest  England."  Ushaw  was  a 
more  enduring  influence  on  his  character  than 
the  Thames  Embankment.  Coventry  Patmore 
described  Thompson  as  the  most  naturally 
Catholic  of  all  men  he  had  known.    So  far  as 


160   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

we  may  tell  he  never  knew  what  it  was  to 
doubt.  Even  in  his  sorest  straits  it  seems 
unlikely  that  he  found  difficulties  in  the  path 
of  faith.  Unless,  indeed,  his  theological  position 
is  that  described  in  the  "  Mistress  of  Vision," 
"  Know,  for  thou  else  couldst  not  believe." 
Catholic  ritual  supplies  the  whole  of  his  imagery 
to  a  poet  who  is  all  imagery.  In  a  sense  his 
most  famous  and  possibly  his  finest  poem  is 
not  the  most  characteristic,  for  the  "  Hound 
of  Heaven "  is  devoid  of  any  symbolism 
definitely  Catholic.  It  might  have  been 
written  by  a  member  of  any  Christian  denomi- 
nation. For  the  rest,  Thompson's  poems  are 
saturated  with  the  imagery  of  his  creed,  even 
his  love  poetry.  The  prevalent  idea  that 
Thompson  could  not  write  love  poetry  seems 
to  me  radically  false.  On  the  contrary,  his 
praises  of  the  woman  he  loved  are  more  fragrant 
than  the  roses  of  any  other  poet  of  his  time. 

God  sets  His  poems  in  thy  face. 

Hers  is  the  face  whence  all  should  copied  be, 
Did  God  make  replicas  of  such  as  she. 

God  laid  His  fingers  on  the  ivories 

Of  her  pure  members  as  on  smoothed  keys 

And  there  out-breathed  her  spiriVs  harmonies. 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  161 

No  woman  worthy  to  receive  such  exquisite 
praises  as  these  but  would  remember  them 
proudly  to  her  dying  day.  But  Thompson 
could  not  always  keep  the  service  of  woman 
apart  from  the  offices  of  the  sanctuary.  "  A 
Carrier  Song  "  is  full  of  conceits  and  fancies 
gathered  from  religion,  and  the  very  beads  of 
the  rosary  are  stnmg  like  pearls  for  a  lady's 
adornment. 

It  is  the  same  with  his  treatment  of  Nature. 
He  expresses  her  under  similar  symbols,  and  in 
terms  derived  from  the  selfsame  doctrine  and 
ritual.  Thompson  was  no  pantheist  or  Nature 
worshipper.  He  complained  that  she  has  no 
heart,  and  is  only  a  cruel  and  obdurate  abund- 
ance of  clay.  One  fancies  he  would  have 
been  in  sympathy  with  the  words  of  a  younger 
writer  :  "  Nature  is  not  oiur  mother.  Nature 
is  our  sister.  We  can  be  proud  of  her  beauty, 
since  we  have  the  same  Father,  but  she  has  no 
authority  over  us  ;  we  have  to  admire,  but  not 
to  imitate."  When  Thompson  speaks  of 
Nature,  however,  he  derives  his  similes  from  his 
customary  ecclesiastical  sources.  The  sun  is 
likened  to  the  Host,  with  sky  for  monstrance  ; 
to  Christ,  with  the  sombre  line  of  the  horizon 
for  Rood  ;    to  the  altar  Wafer,  and  signed 


162  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

with  the  Cross.  The  twilight  is  violet- 
cassocked.  Day  a  dedicated  priest  in  all 
his  robes  pontifical  exprest.    Night — 

See  how  there 
The  cowled  night 
Kneels  on  the  Eastern  sanctuary-stair. 
What  is  this  feel  of  incense  everywhere  ? 
Clings  it  round  folds  of  the  blanch-amiced  clouds, 
Upwafted  by  the  solemn  thurifer, 

The  mighty  Spirit  unknmon, 
That  swingeth   the  slow  earth   before   the  em- 
bannered  Throne  ? 

Thompson's  use  of  ecclesiastical  material 
reaches  its  extreme  limit  in  poems  such  as 
"  Assumpta  Maria."  The  images  of  this 
poem  are  taken  from  the  Office  of  the  Assump- 
tion and  from  the  "  Song  of  Songs."  Thompson 
made  no  secret  of  the  matter,  either  in  public 
or  in  private.  He  prefixed  the  motto  from 
Cowley,  "  Thou  needst  not  sing  new  songs,  but 
say  the  old,"  frankly  to  his  lyric.  He  com- 
mends the  writer  quite  simply  to  the  protection 
of  his  Patroness  as  "  poor  Thief  of  Song."  To 
the  ecclesiologist  it  is  all  very  delightful,  even 
to  the  Greek  phrases  gathered  from  a  Good 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  163 

Friday  Office,  and  laid  like  amber  with  his 
rhymes,  but  to  the  average  reader  such  re- 
morseless ecclesiasticism  is  doubtless  a  little 
disconcerting. 

Those  critics  who  dislike  Thompson's 
"  sacerdotal "  poetry,  equally  dislike  the 
"  turgid  "  Latinisms  of  his  speech.  There  is 
no  doubt  he  was  in  the  habit  of  using  very 
long  words,  very  strange  words,  and  words 
very  difficult  to  be  imderstanded  of  the  people. 
Just  as  Rossetti  dug  "  stunning  "  words  out 
of  old  volumes  of  romance,  so  Thompson 
revived  obsolete  words  from  his  favourite 
authors  with  equal  pride.  He  was  kindly 
affectioned  towards  such  findings  as  roseal, 
labyrinthine,  and  fuliginous,  and  he  rejoiced 
greatly  when  he  rediscovered  them  creeping 
back  into  use  after  his  initiative.  He  has 
been  suspected  of  inventing  certain  odd 
phrases ;  certainly  he  was  guilty  of  some 
strange  experiments  in  speech.  But  so  far 
as  his  Latinism  was  concerned,  much  must  be 
forgiven  to  a  poet  who  was  saturated  with  the 
Vulgate  and  the  Missal,  and  whose  chosen 
companions  were  De  Quincey  and  Sir  Thomas 
Browne.  However,  it  is  not  fair  to  speak  as 
if  Thompson  were  always  Latin  and  obscure. 


164  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Even  so,  one  day,  he  would  afford  scope  for 
another  Browning  Society  to  elucidate  his 
mysteries.  As  a  fact  he  is  often  quite  clear 
and  direct.  His  most  beautiful  effects  are 
sometimes  reached  by  methods  of  the  utmost 
simplicity.  But  a  strange  personality  must 
be  expected  to  declare  itself  in  unaccustomed 
fashions.  A  life  such  as  Thompson's  will  find 
expression  through  a  unique  revelation. 
Literary  admirations  such  as  liis  will  result 
in  magnificent  plagiarisms.  Beliefs  and  re- 
nunciations, like  those  he  was  instant  in,  tend 
to  find  forms  stark  and  uncompromising  as 
themselves.  The  new  wine — ^it  is  an  ancient 
saying — oft-times  bursts  the  old  bottles. 

It  would  seem  unlikely  that  Thompson  is 
destined  to  permanent  popularity.  He  never 
professed  to  offer  sugar  plums  as  substitutes  for 
poetry.  His  creed  is  anathema  to  a  large  section 
of  the  public  not  concerned  with  spiritual 
matters,  and  to  a  larger  portion  that  is.  His 
mysticism  was  not  the  pallid  moonshine  masking 
under  that  name,  but  rather  "  morality  carried 
to  the  n""  power."  His  treatment  of  love  and 
of  nature  is  not  that  to  which  his  countrymen 
are  accustomed,  or  particularly  congenial  to- 
their  character.     Such  fame  as  he  has  won 


A  CATHOLIC  POET  165 

was  derivative  in  the  first  instance  from  the 
rumours  of  his  lamentable  legend.  Gossip 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  market-place 
to  songs  which  otherwise  would  have  fallen  on 
deaf  ears.  But  supposing  it  were  possible  to 
purge  his  audience  of  such  unworthy  hearers, 
the  residue  remaining  would  be  peculiarly 
fitted  to  appreciate  pure  poetry  at  its  worth. 
These  auditors  inevitably  would  be  thrilled 
by  poetry  of  the  highest  accomplishment  and 
of  the  most  direct  inspiration,  poetry  which 
in  its  rarest  moments  rises  to  heights  the  most 
exalted  of  its  day. 


WALTER  PATER,  AND  SOME 
PHASES  OF  DEVELOPMENT 


IT  was  stated  recently  in  some  weekly 
review  that  no  one  reads  Walter  Pater 
to-day,  and  that  his  fame  is  not  so  much 
under  eclipse  as  extinct.  Certainly  the  present 
generation  give  less  thought  and  consideration 
to  these  writings  than  did  their  fathers  before 
them.  Each  generation  adores  its  own  idols, 
and  sometimes,  indeed,  goes  a-whoring  after 
its  own  inventions.  The  years  immediately 
following  the  death  of  a  famous  author  are 
frequently  enough  the  period  of  his  deepest 
neglect.  The  young  are  occupied  with  their 
own  difficulties  and  their  own  ideals.  They 
are  busily  concerned  in  refashioning  the  world 
after  another  pattern  of  beauty  and  righteous- 
ness than  sufficed  their  elders'  needs.  The 
newly  dead  are  buried,  but  as  yet  no  memorial 
has  been  raised  above  the  freshly  digged  grave. 
Pater  died  in  July,  1894,  and  his  reputation 
is  now  in  the  withered  ear.  The  reproach  rests 
167 


168   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

primarily  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  public, 
but  the  publishers  of  his  books  are  not  free 
from  blame.  A  cheaper  edition  is  needed 
imperatively  of  these  writings.  Only  one  is 
published  in  a  popular  edition,  and  that  appa- 
rently for  reasons  not  unconnected  with  copy- 
right. My  own  copy  of  "  Marius  the  Epicurean  " 
is  in  Macmillan's  well-known  Eversley  series  ; 
and  Pater,  when  giving  it  to  me  some  years 
before  his  death,  remarked  that  it  was  intended 
for  the  American  market.  The  same  book 
can  be  procured  in  England,  two  decades 
later,  only  in  two  volumes  and  at  a  consider- 
ably higher  price. 

Though  I  admit  that  Pater's  reputation 
is  under  eclipse,  not  for  one  moment  do  I 
suspect  it  to  be  extinct.  Prophecy  is  dan- 
gerous, and  I  prophesy  seldom  and  with  diffi- 
culty. The  lean  years  will  pass,  I  am  per- 
suaded, and  Pater's  reputation  return,  full 
and  good,  seven  ears  in  one  stalk.  We  may 
put  aside  the  seriousness  and  distinction  of 
his  thought,  though  these  alone  should  suffice 
to  keep  his  writings  sweet.  But  the  mere 
beauty  of  his  books,  considered  simply  as 
literature — a  prose  felicitous  and  suggestive 
as  the  finest  poetry — will  render  them  heirlooms, 


WALTER  PATER  169 

even  in  a  treasure-house  so  rich  and  fortunate 
as  our  own.  We  may  place  his  goldsmith's 
work  side  by  side  with  the  masterpieces  of  our 
greatest  artists  with  no  sense  of  incongruity. 
Can  that  writing  be  considered  dead,  without 
resurrection,  which  endures  comparison  to  the 
living  prose  of  the  immortal  masters  ?  Recall,  by 
way  of  illustration,  one  or  two  passages  bearing 
the  hall-mark  of  fame.  Age  cannot  wither 
nor  castom  stale  such  extracts,  even  when  torn 
from  their  context,  like  a  joint  from  the  socket. 
The  first  quotation  shall  be  from  "  Hamlet." 

"  It  goes  so  heavily  with  my  disposition 
that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  to 
me  a  sterile  promontory ;  this  most  excel- 
lent canopy,  the  air,  look  you,  this  brave 
o'erhanging  firmament,  this  majestical  roof 
fretted  with  golden  fire,  why  it  appears  no 
other  thing  to  me  than  a  foul  and  pestilent 
congregation  of  vapours.  What  a  piece  of  work 
is  a  man  !  How  noble  in  reason  !  How  infinite 
in  faculty  !  In  form  and  moving,  how  express 
and  admirable  !  In  action  how  Uke  an  angel ! 
In  apprehension  how  like  a  god,  the  beauty  of 
the  world,  the  paragon  of  animals  !  And  yet 
to  me  what  is  this  quintessence  of  dust  ?  Man 
delights  not  me  ;  no,  nor  woman  neither." 


170   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

The  next  may  be  taken  from  a  familiar 
epistle  contained  in  "  Charles  Lamb  and  the 
Lloyds." 

*'  One  passage  in  your  letter  a  little  displeased 
me.  The  rest  was  nothing  but  kindness, 
which  Robert's  letters  are  ever  brimful  of. 
You  say  that  '  this  world  to  you  seems  drain 'd 
of  all  its  sweets  ! '  At  first  I  had  hoped  you 
only  meant  to  insinuate  the  high  price  of 
sugar,    but    I    am    afraid   you    meant    more. 

0  Robert,  I  don't  know  what  you  call  sweet. 
Honey  and  the  honeycomb,  roses  and  violets, 
are  yet  in  the  earth.  The  sun  and  moon  yet 
reign  in  Heaven,  and  the  lesser  lights  keep  up 
their  pretty  twinklings.  Meats  and  drinks, 
sweet  sights  and  sweet  smells,  a  country  walk, 
spring  and  autiunn,  follies  and  repentance,  quar- 
rels and  reconcilements,  have  all  a  sweetness 
by  turns.  Good  humour  and  good  nature, 
friends  at  home  that  love  you,  and  friends 
abroad  that  miss  you,  you  possess  all  these 
things,  and  more  innumerable,  and  these  are  all 
sweet  things.  You  may  extract  honey  from 
everything  ;   do  not  go  a-gathering  after  gall. 

1  assure  you  I  find  this  world  a  very  pretty 
place." 

A  third  extract  shall  follow  from  the  most 


WALTER  PATER  171 

piercing  and  poignant  of  all  sermons,  "  The 
Parting  of  Friends." 

"  O  my  mother,  whence  is  this  unto  thee, 
that  thou  hast  good  things  poured  upon  thee 
and  canst  not  keep  them,  and  bearest  children, 
yet  darest  not  own  them  ?  Why  hast  thou 
not  the  skill  to  use  their  services,  nor  the  heart 
to  rejoice  in  their  love  ?  How  is  it  that  whatever 
is  generous  in  purpose,  and  tender  or  deep  in 
devotion,  thy  flower  and  thy  promise  falls  from 
thy  bosom  and  finds  no  home  within  thine 
arms  ?  Who  hath  put  this  note  upon  thee, 
to  have  '  a  miscarrying  womb  and  dry  breasts,' 
to  be  strange  to  thine  own  flesh,  and  thine  eye 
cruel  to  thy  little  ones  ?  Thou  makest  them 
'  stand  all  the  day  idle,'  as  the  very  condition 
of  thy  bearing  with  them  ;  or  thou  biddest 
them  be  gone  where  they  will  be  more  welcome  ; 
or  thou  sellest  them  for  nought  to  the  stranger 
that  passes  by.  And  what  wilt  thou  do  in 
the  end  thereof  !  " 

Now  side  by  side  with  these  justly  famous 
passages  may  be  set  an  extract  from  Walter 
Pater,  which  we  of  an  older  generation  thought 
vital  and  beautiful,  until  we  were  assured  it  was 
dead  beyond  hope  of  resurrection.  It  is,  of 
course,  the  translation  through  an  exotic  tem- 


172   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

perament  into  imaginative  prose  of  Leonardo 
da  Vinci's  wonderful  portrait  of  Monna  Lisa, 
the  temporary  disappearance  of  which  from 
the  Louvre  left,  not  merely  Paris,  but  the 
whole  world  for  the  time  less  rich. 

"  The  presence  that   thus  rose  so  strangely 
beside  the  waters,  is  expressive  of  what  in  the 
ways  of  a  thousand  years  men  had  come  to 
desire.    Hers  is  the  head  upon  which  all  '  the 
ends  of  the  world  are  come,'  and  the  eyelids  are 
a  little  weary.     It  is  a  beauty  wrought  out 
from  within  upon  the  flesh,  the  deposit,  little 
cell  by  cell,  of  strange  thoughts  and  fantastic 
reveries    and   exquisite   passions.     Set    it    for 
a  moment  beside  one  of  these  white  Greek 
goddesses  or  beautiful  women  of  antiquity,  and 
how  would  they  be  troubled  by  this  beauty, 
into  which  the  soul  with  all  its  maladies  has 
passed !    All    the    thoughts    and    experience 
of  the  world  have  etched  and  moulded  there, 
in  that  which  they  have  of  power  to  refine  and 
make  expressive  the  outward  form,  the  animal- 
ism of  Greece,  the  lust  of  Rome,  the  reverie 
of  the  Middle  Age  with  its  spiritual  ambition 
and  imaginative  loves,  the  return  of  the  pagan 
world,  the  sins  of  the  Borgias.     She  is  older 
than  the  rocks  among  which  she  sits  ;    like 


WALTER  PATER  173 

the  vampire  she  has  been  dead  many  times, 
and  learned  the  secrets  of  the  grave,  and  has 
been  a  diver  in  deep  seas,  and  keeps  their 
fallen  day  about  her,  and  trafficked  for  strange 
webs  with  Eastern  merchants,  and,  as  Leda, 
was  the  mother  of  Helen  of  Troy,  and,  as 
Saint  Anne,  the  mother  of  Mary  ;  and  all  this 
has  been  to  her  but  as  the  sound  of  lyres  and 
flutes,  and  lives  only  in  the  delicacy  with 
which  it  has  moulded  the  changing  lineaments 
and  tinged  the  eyelids  and  the  hands.  The 
fancy  of  a  perpetual  life,  sweeping  together 
ten  thousand  experiences,  is  an  old  one  ;  and 
modern  thought  has  conceived  the  idea  of 
humanity  as  wrought  upon  by,  and  summing 
up  in  itself,  all  modes  of  thought  and  life. 
Certainly  Lady  Lisa  might  stand  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  the  old  fancy,  the  symbol  of  the 
modem  idea." 

I  submit  that  the  foregoing  passage  from 
Pater's  "  Renaissance "  stands  side  by  side 
with  quotations  from  such  crested  and  prevail- 
ing names  as  Shakespeare,  Lamb,  and  Newman, 
without  disaster.  If  that  be  so,  his  writings 
are  independent  of  the  whim  of  the  public,  or 
the  fashion  of  an  hour.  Their  author  can  lie 
quiet  in  his  grave,  in  the  sure  and  certain  hope 


174  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

of  a  glorious  resurrection.  He  may  rest  content 
in  the  knowledge  that  sooner  or  later  he  must 
come  to  his  kingdom.  Possibly  his  subjects 
may  be  few,  but  of  their  loyalty  and  devotion 
there  can  be  no  question. 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  the  most 
painstaking  and  laborious  of  English  writers 
believed  himself  to  be  of  Dutch  extraction. 
An  admiral  of  his  name  came  over  from  the 
Low  Countries  with  William  of  Orange,  and 
settled  permanently  in  this  country.  Certainly 
Walter  Pater's  personal  appearance  did  not 
contradict  such  an  origin,  but  the  matter 
was  never  more  than  a  pleasant  speculation. 
It  also  pleased  Pater  to  consider  that  the  painter 
Jean  Baptiste  Pater,  the  pupil  of  Watteau, 
derived  from  the  same  source.  However  this 
might  be,  the  immediate  ancestors  of  Walter 
Pater  were  found  living  at  Olney,  and  there 
the  family  enjoyed  the  delightful  relations 
of  friendship  with  William  Cowper.  Walter 
Horatio  Pater  was  born  at  Shad  well  in  August, 
1839.  For  some  unapparent  reason  it  was 
the  traditional  custom  of  some  generations  of 
Paters  to  educate  the  sons  as  Roman  Catho- 
lics, whilst  the  daughters  were  invariably 
baptized  as  Anglicans.     Pater  and  his  brother 


WALTER  PATER  175 

were  the  fii«t  male  Nonconformists  of  their 
stock.    A  devout  and  serious  boy,  his  early 
religious  aspirations  received  a  great  impetus 
from  some  personal  intercourse  with  Keble, 
the  saintly  author  of  the  "  Christian  Year." 
The  child  was  fond  of  playing  at  church  func- 
tions,  and  the  lad,   sensitive  to   Keble's   in- 
fluence, looked  forward  to  taking  Orders  in 
the  Church  of  England.    Never,  at  any  time, 
with  all  his  love  of  colour  and  ceremonial  in 
ecclesiastical  matters,  did  he  experience  any 
peculiar  inclination  towards  the  ancient  faith. 
Prom  first  to  last  Pater's  lines  were  cast  in 
pleasant  places,  and  from  school  at  Canterbury, 
"  that    old    ecclesiastical    city   with   the    rich 
heraldries  of  blackened  and  mouldering  cloister, 
the   ruined   overgrown  spaces  where  the  old 
monastery  stood,  the  stones  of  which  furnished 
material  for  the  rambling  prebends'  houses," 
he  passed  to  Oxford,  the  mediajval  town  of 
grey  and  green,  with  its  criunbling  pomp  of 
ancient   buildings   set   against   a   backgroimd 
of    grassy    lawns.    Oxford,    that    sweet    city 
with  the  dreaming  spires,  was  destined  to  be 
Pater's  lifelong  home.     For  thirty-five  years, 
first  as  a  scholar  of  Queen's,  and  afterwards  as 
Fellow  of  Brasenose    he  studied  and  taught 


176    PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

in  her  schools.  There  the  books  were  written 
on  which  his  fame  depends  ;  there  his  influence 
moulded  the  character  of  those  young  men  who 
came  within  his  circle,  and  were  worthy  to 
witness  to  his  ideals.  That  early  desire  to  take 
Orders  in  the  Church  passed  from  his  mind, 
or  rather,  shall  I  say,  was  postponed.  For  a 
time  the  Unitarian  Ministry  seemed  too  definite 
a  committal.  He  did  more  than  suspend 
judgment  with  Montaigne  ;  he  seemed  even  to 
range  himself  upon  a  side.  A  casual  hohday 
in  Italy  had  led  to  a  prolonged  study  of  the 
arts  and  philosophy  of  antiquity  and  of  the 
Renaissance,  and  he  early  recognized  that  in 
an  interpretation  of  these  his  life's  work  was  to 
be  found.  These  speculations  and  ideas  were 
to  lead  him  by  long  and  perilous  paths — 
had  he  but  foreseen  the  weariness  of  the  way — 
towards  a  resting-place  which  he  never  perhaps 
quite  attained.  Absorbed  in  such  preoccupa- 
tions and  curiosities  his  simple  and  laborious 
life  came  to  an  imexpected  end.  In  the  summer 
of  1894  Pater  had  an  attack  of  rheumatic 
fever,  and  was  confined  to  his  bed.  He  made 
an  apparent  recovery,  and  left  his  room.  He 
resumed  work  on  the  study  of  Pascal,  which 
occupied  his  attention  at  the  time,  but  con- 


WALTER  PATER  177 

traded  pleurisy  from  writing  near  to  an  open 
window.  Again  he  recovered,  but  on  coming 
downstairs  the  heart  suddenly  failed,  and  he 
died  in  his  sister's  arms.  He  was  but  fifty-five, 
and  death  struck  him  down  in  the  midst  of  his 
literary  activities.  "  Sayest  thou,  I  have  not 
played  five  acts  ?  True,  but  in  human  life 
three  acts  only  make  sometimes  an  entire 
play.  That  is  the  Composer's  business,  not 
thine." 

In  1873  Walter  Pater  collected  a  niunber 
of  essays  contributed  by  him  to  the  Fort- 
nightly and  Westminster  Reviews  on  sub- 
jects chiefly  concerned  with  the  arts  of  the 
Renaissance.  The  book  was  published  at  a 
time  when  a  wonderful  energy  of  beauty  was 
manifested  in  the  sister  arts  of  painting  and 
poetry.  The  romantic  and  literary  pictures 
of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood  were  accom- 
panied and  paralleled  by  the  romantic  and 
coloured  poetry  of  Dante  Rossetti,  Morris, 
and  Swinburne,  and  the  printed  page  was 
richer  than  the  glowing  canvas.  Even  now 
some  aftermath  of  this  beauty  remains.  All 
is  not  yet  faded  into  the  light  of  conunon  day. 
A  belated  stray,  tricked  in  the  tabard  and 
piping  in  the  accents  of  a  demoded  fashion, 

M 


178   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

occasionally  recalls  a  loveliness  that  is  a  trifle 
out  of  date.  Pater's  first  book  was  repre- 
sentative of  his  period.  It  was  really  the 
complement  in  prose  of  the  brilliant  palette 
affected  by  the  artists  and  singers  about  him. 
These  enthusiasts  were  his  personal  friends, 
and  it  would  be  strange  indeed  had  he  not  felt 
sympathy  with  their  school. 

A  careful  student  of  Pater — whose  long  in- 
disposition is  a  loss  to  English  letters — ^has 
described  "  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Re- 
naissance "  as  the  most  beautiful  book  of  prose 
in  our  literature.  It  is  a  high  claim,  but  one 
which  many  will  think  to  carry  no  excess  of 
praise.  Here  was  to  be  foimd,  as  has  been  noted, 
a  modulated  prose  which  made  the  splendour  of 
Ruskin  seem  gaudy,  the  neatness  of  Matthew 
Arnold  a  mincing  neatness,  and  the  brass 
sound  strident  in  the  orchestra  of  Carlyle. 
Possibly  the  "  Renaissance  "  may  be  said  not 
so  much  to  suggest  comparison  to  the  prose  of 
other  authors  as  to  approximate  to  the  more 
delicate  and  considered  art  of  poetry.  The 
mere  words  are  placed  with  such  judgment 
that  they  catch  fire  one  from  another,  and  glow 
like  contrasted  gems  set  by  some  skilful  jeweller. 
Of  course  the  extreme  deliberation  necessitated 


WALTER  PATER  179 

by  this  sort  of  work  makes  for  a  certain  heavi- 
ness, a  danger  Pater  did  not  always  avoid. 
His  travail  was  not  so  apparent  here,  however, 
as  in  some  later  books.  He  contrived  to  load 
every  rift  of  his  subject  with  ore,  and  yet  to 
escape  over-elaboration.  In  one  of  the  most 
finished  of  these  essays — that  on  the  "  School  of 
Giorgione  " — Pater  speaks  of  all  art  as  con- 
stantly aspiring  towards  the  condition  of  music, 
that  being  the  art  in  which  the  message  is 
practically  indistinguishable  from  the  form 
Music  is  not  the  art  one  associates  in  the  first 
instance  with  these  writings.  Their  quality 
is  rather  a  constant  and  cunning  appeal  to  the 
eye.  Like  children,  they  are  to  be  seen  in 
preference  to  being  heard.  In  his  essay  on 
Aucassin  and  Nicolette  Pater  speaks  of  the 
adventures  of  that  exquisite  mediaeval  cante- 
fable  as  chosen  for  the  happy  occasion  they 
afford  of  keeping  the  eye  of  the  fancy,  perhaps 
the  outward  eye,  fixed  on  pleasant  objects — a 
garden,  a  ruined  tower,  the  little  hut  of  flowers 
which  Nicolette  constructs  in  the  forest  whither 
she  has  escaped  from  her  enemies,  as  a  token 
to  Aucassin  that  she  has  passed  that  way. 
The  subjects  of  these  early  essays  are  arresting 
in  themselves.     Characters  more  outstanding 


180   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

and  mightily  hewn  it  is  impossible  to  find 
than  some  dealt  with  here.  Characters  sweeter 
and  more  beautiful  it  is  difficult  to  imagine 
than  others  included  amongst  these  studies. 
Such  subjects  are  obviously  selected  by  the 
essayist  because  of  the  striking  personality 
which  differentiates  them  from  their  fellows. 
They  are  the  Sauls,  a  head  and  shotilders 
taller  than  the  average  of  the  sons  of  men. 
But  noticeable  as  is  Pater's  attraction  towards 
the  picturesque  personality,  equally  apparent 
is  his  choice  of  the  picturesque  incident  to 
illustrate  his  theme.  The  legend  is  invariably 
selected  to  keep  the  eye  of  the  reader  fixed  on 
pleasant  or  coloured  objects.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  famous  essay  on  Leonardo  da  Vinci  from 
which  quotation  has  already  been  made.  The 
whole  of  the  brilliant  "  legend  "  of  Vasari  is 
transcribed  with  such  vividness  that  it  glows 
with  the  inspiration  of  a  gospel.  Leonardo 
constructed  models  in  relief  of  women  smiling  ; 
he  bought  the  caged  birds  and  set  them  free  ; 
his  physical  strength  wa^  such  that  he  bent  a 
horseshoe  like  a  coil  of  lead  ;  he  followed  chance 
passers-by,  whose  beauty  of  eyes  or  hair 
attracted  him,  about  the  streets  of  Florence 
until  the  svm  went  down.     Some  pages,  even, 


WALTER  PATER  181 

are  little  more  than  a  catalogue  of  exquisite 
bric-^-brac.  "  Beautiful  objects  lay  about 
there — reliquaries,  pyxes,  silver  images  for 
the  Pope's  chapel  at  Rome,  strange  fancy- 
work  of  the  Middle  Age,  keeping  odd  company 
with  fragments  of  antiquity,  then  but  lately 
discovered."  It  reads  almost  like  Balzac's 
"  Le  Peau  de  Chagrin."  And  this  is  not  all, 
for  but  a  few  lines  below  the  list  is  continued 
with  "  pictures,  drinking  vessels,  ambries,  in- 
stnmients  of  music,  all  fair  to  look  upon,  filling 
the  coramaon  ways  of  life  with  the  reflection 
of  some  far-off  brightness."  The  subject  might 
possibly  be  illustrated  more  satisfactorily  from 
either  the  "  Sandro  Botticelli  "  or  "  The  School 
of  Giorgione,"  included  in  the  same  volimie. 
If  these  essays  contain  no  single  passage  quite 
equal  to  the  loveUest  page  of  the  "  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,"  they  cannot  be  reproached  with 
suggesting  an  auctioneer's  catalogue.  The 
"  legend  "  of  the  Uves  of  the  two  Renaissance 
artists  is  as  dexterously  selected  as  that  of 
their  greater  rival.  The  inspiration  of  the 
studies  is  even  more  continuously  sustained, 
for  the  writer's  imagination  flies  on  a  level 
wing.  Consider  for  a  moment  the  beauty  of 
Pater's  description  of  either  the  Venus  or  the 


182   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Madonna  of  the  Magnificat  by  the  Florentine 
painter.    No  doubt  it  is  purely  a  subjective 
impression,  a  work  of  art  seen  through  a  tem- 
perament ;    but  how  rare  is  such  a  tempera- 
ment, and  how  unique  such  felicity  of  speech  ! 
Botticelli's  Madonna — Pater  tells  us — "  though 
she  holds  in  her  hand  the  '  Desire  of  all  nations, ' 
is  one  of  those  who  are  neither  for  Jehovah 
nor  for  His  enemies,  and  her  choice  is  on  her 
face.     Once   indeed   He   guides   her  hand   to 
transcribe  in  a  book  the  words  of  her  exalta- 
tion, the  Ave,  and  the  Magnificat,  and  the 
Gaude  Maria,  and  the  young  angels,  glad  to 
rouse  her  for  a  moment  from  her  dejection, 
are  eager  to  hold  the  inkhorn,  and  to  support 
the  book  ;  but  the  pen  almost  drops  from  her 
hand,  and  the  high  cold  words  have  no  meaning 
for  her,  and  her  true  children  are  those  others 
among  whom,  in  her  rude  home,  the  intolerable 
honour  came  to  her,  with  that  look  of  wistful 
inquiry  on  their  irregular  faces  which  you  see 
in  startled  animals — ^gipsy  children,  such  as 
those  who,  in  Apennine  villages,  still  hold  out 
their  long  brown  arms  to  beg  of  you,  but  on 
Sundays  become  enfants  du  chceur,  with  their 
thick  black  hair  nicely  combed,  and  fair  white 
linen  on  their  sunburnt  throats." 


WALTER  PATER  183 

Tnily,  indeed,  may  the  "  Renaissance  "  be 
described  as  "  the  golden  book  of  beauty.'* 
What  relief  to  turn  from  the  feverish  rhetoric 
of  Raskin,  preoccupied  with  moral  rather  than 
aesthetic  values,  to  this  simpler  doctrine,  this 
almost  literary  quietism.  I  greatly  fear  that 
its  art  criticism  may  be  to  the  taste  of  neither 
Mr.  Berenson  nor  Mr.  Roger  Fry.  It  is  not 
concerned  either  with  details  of  measurements, 
or  with  the  science  of  the  number  of  cubes 
contained  in  the  human  coimtenance.  Very 
possibly  it  is  a  criticism  which  may  appear 
old-fashioned  to  the  yoimg,  but  wisdom  is 
not  necessarily  the  appanage  of  youth.  Such 
work  is  really  creative  rather  than  critical. 
The  theme  becomes  plastic  in  the  hands  of  the 
artist,  and  is  fashioned  and  moulded  anew  in 
accordance  with  the  imperious  claim  of  his 
temperament.  Instead  of  the  object  being 
set  before  us  in  its  naked  reality,  we  see  it 
through  the  haze  of  a  many-sided  culture. 
May  this  not  add  a  glamour  to  the  view  ! 

"  The  Renaissance  " — Pater's  first  book — ^re- 
presents his  farthest  removal  from  the  doctrines 
of  revealed  religion.  Leonardo's  ghostly  head 
of  Christ  had  become  for  him  "  the  image 
of  what  the  history  it  symbolizes  has  more  and 


184   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

more  become  for  the  world,  paler  and  paler 
as  it  recedes  into  the  distance  "  ;  and  Winckel- 
mann,  who  shammed  Catholicism  that  he 
might  live  amongst  the  marbles  of  Rome, 
"  at  the  bar  of  the  highest  criticism  perhaps 
may  be  absolved."  The  most  significant  utter- 
ance in  the  whole  volume — the  "  Conclusion  " — 
said,  and  says  still,  that  "  not  the  fruit  of  ex- 
perience, but  experience  itself,  is  the  end," 
and  doubtless  Pater  came  to  feel  that  some 
danger  lurked  for  the  unwary  in  such  a  doctrine 
as  this.  Danger  there  undoubtedly  was 
Certain  young  men  pressed  on  Pater's  teaching 
a  logical  application,  such  as  Ward  applied  to 
Newman's,  at  an  earlier  day  in  the  same  uni- 
versity. The  application  was  equally  dis- 
tasteful. These  yoimg  men  let  no  flower  of 
the  spring  pass  by  ;  they  left  tokens  of  their 
voluptuousness  in  every  place,  making  the 
quiet  groves  of  philosophy  look  like  Hamp- 
stead  Heath  after  a  Bank  Holiday.  The 
unfortunate  philosopher  was  deeply  mortified. 
He  withdrew  the  epilogue  from  a  second  edition 
of  his  book,  only  reprinting  it  after  he  had 
dealt  with  the  same  subject  more  fully  in 
"  Marius  the  Epicurean."  Even  then,  with 
an  almost  clerical  sense  of  responsibility,  he 


WALTER  PATER  185 

made  certain  changes  which  brought  it  closer 
to  his  original  meaning.  For  instance,  in  a 
passage  dealing  with  how  we  might  make  the 
most  of  the  interval  that  is  ours  before  death, 
he  had  remarked  that  "  the  wisest "  spend 
it  in  "  art  and  song."  In  the  re\'ised  version 
the  word  "  wisest  "  is  qualified  by  the  addition 
of  the  phrase,  "  at  least  among  the  children 
of  this  world."  But  the  real  measure  of  his 
dismay  was  the  expansion  of  these  few  pages 
into  the  packed  volume  of  "  Marius  the  Epi- 
curean." 

"  Marius  the  Epicurean  :  His  Sensations 
and  Ideas,"  appeared  some  twelve  years  after 
the  "  Renaissance  "  was  published.  In  incep- 
tion and  execution  it  occupied  six  of  the  best 
years  of  Pater's  life.  This  was  a  long  time 
to  spend  upon  the  production  of  a  single  book  ; 
but  Pater  was  a  scholar,  laborious  and  precise, 
as  well  as  a  most  painstaking  artist  in  prose. 
He  dug  deep  his  foimdations  that  the  building 
he  reared  might  endure.  The  wonder  is  not 
that  such  a  book  as  "  Marius  "  took  six  years 
in  the  making,  but  rather  that  it  ever  got 
finished  at  all.  Rossetti  once  described  him- 
self as  the  racked  and  tortured  meditun  through 
which  his  poetry  passed.    I  doubt,  however, 


186  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

if  the  pangs  of  Pater's  labour  were  not  longer 
and  more  severe.  There  has  been  nothing 
approaching  the  meticulous  care  of  his  method 
since  Flaubert  killed  himself  in  the  effort  to 
produce  a  perfect  prose.  His  innumerable 
notes,  his  incessant  emendations  and  recopy- 
ings,  were  enough  to  weary  the  bravest  heart ; 
and  this  anxious  and  overstrained  literary 
conscience  undoubtedly  is  responsible  for  the 
tortuous  sentences  and  heavy  solemnities 
which  at  times  disfigure  his  style.  "  Marius 
the  Epicurean,"  it  should  be  noticed,  is  not 
described  by  its  author  as  a  romance.  I  fear 
that  if  anyone  were  to  try  to  read  it  for  the 
sake  of  the  story  he  would — to  quote  Dr. 
Johnson — hang  himself.  Pater  was  no  novelist. 
He  wrote  narratives  which  some  excellent 
critics  have  the  singular  good  fortune  to  enjoy. 
He,  himself,  preferred  "  Imaginary  Portraits  " 
to  any  other  of  his  books.  Tastes  luckily 
differ,  or  we  should  all  love  the  same  woman. 
The  sensations  and  the  ideas  of  Marius  are  the 
subjects  of  the  book,  not  his  actions.  Pater 
was  an  essayist,  and  "  Marius  "  is  really  a 
volume  of  essays  on  many  fascinating  matters  of 
peculiar  interest  to  its  writer.  In  a  sense  it  may 
be  considered  an  autobiography,  for  it  records 


WALTER  PATER  187 

the  progress  of  a  soul — ^whose  Odyssey,  after 
all,  is  the  only  thing  that  matters — from  station 
to  station,  till  it  stood  face  to  face  with  the  one 
supreme  question.  It  was  a  record  of  Pater's 
spiritual  experiences,  and  characteristically 
enough  he  managed  to  evade  giving  a  definite 
answer  at  the  close.  It  ends  on  a  note  of 
interrogation. 

Mr.  A.  C.  Benson  has  described  the  motive 
of  "  Marius  "  as  the  tracing  of  the  history 
of  a  highly  intellectual  nature,  with  a  deep 
religious  bias,  through  various  phases  of  philo- 
sophy to  the  threshold  of  Christianity.  The 
scene  of  the  story  is  laid  in  Italy  at  the  time 
when  Marcus  Aurelius  was  Emperor  of  Rome. 
The  period  was  excellently  chosen,  for  it  enabled 
Pater  to  bring  together  many  interesting  and 
diverse  personalities,  and  to  present,  quite 
naturally,  various  contrasted  systems  of  philo- 
sophical and  religious  belief.  The  volume  is 
divided  into  four  parts.  The  first  book  is 
concerned  with  the  pious  upbringing  of  Marius 
by  his  widowed  mother  in  her  delightful  old 
Roman  villa,  near  by  the  sea.  "  A  white  bird," 
she  once  told  her  son,  looking  at  him  gravely, 
"  a  bird  which  he  must  carry  in  his  bosom 
across  a  crowded  public  place — his  own  soul  was 


188  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

like  that."  It  narrates  his  boyhood  and  his 
schooldays  ;  above  all  his  friendship  with  a 
youth,  greatly  gifted,  whose  destiny  was  to 
die  young,  whilst  yet  immature.  It  ends  on 
the  desolate  note  of  pagan  death.  The  second 
part  traces  the  development  of  Marius  into 
an  Epicurean  of  the  nobler  Cyrenaic  school, 
and  incidentally  explains  those  passages  of  the 
conclusion  to  the  "  Renaissance  "  which  had 
been  so  grievously  misimderstood  by  certain 
yoimg  men.  He  journeys  to  Rome  in  the 
company  of  Cornelius,  a  soldier  of  the  Imperial 
guard.  This  officer  is  a  Christian,  but  for  a 
long  time  Marius  fails  to  learn  of  his  faith, 
or  to  grasp  the  secret  of  his  serenity.  The  post 
of  secretary  to  the  Emperor  brings  Marius  into 
intimate  relations  with  Marcus  Aurelius  him- 
self, and  enables  the  Stoic  philosophy  to  be 
presented  in  its  highest  and  most  enduring 
form.  The  short  but  extremely  important 
third  portion  of  the  volume  indicates  the  causes 
of  the  dissatisfaction  of  Marius  with  both  the 
Epicurean  and  the  Stoic  philosophies,  and  is 
followed  by  the  chapter  on  the  Will  as  Vision, 
in  which,  during  the  course  of  a  lonely  ride, 
it  is  borne  in  upon  him  that  behind — but 
only  just  behind — ^the  veil  of  a  mechanical 


WALTER  PATER  189 

and  material  order  there  may  be  a  guide, 
closer  than  any  friend  whom  he  had  known. 
The  fourth  section  follows,  with  the  unveiling  of 
the  faith  of  Cornelius,  and  the  gradual  initiation 
of  Marius  into  the  doctrines  and  the  cere- 
monies of  Christianity.  He  is  never  formally 
received  by  baptism  into  the  Faith,  but  during 
a  minor  persecution  of  the  Church  is  arrested, 
together  with  Cornelius,  and  sent  for  trial  to 
Rome.  Marius  bribes  the  guards  to  connive 
at  the  escape  of  his  friend,  but  is  himself  stricken 
down  by  fever,  and  dies,  fortified  by  the  last 
Sacraments  of  that  Church  of  which  he  may 
be  considered  a  martyr,  although  to  which  he 
never  absolutely  belonged. 

"  Marius  "  is  a  book  of  contrasts,  the  con- 
trast of  pagan  death  and  Christian  life,  of 
Epicurean  and  Stoic  philosophies,  of  an  old 
despair  with  a  great  new  hope.  Its  Epicu- 
reanism is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  instinct 
of  Dante's  Ciacco,  that  accomplished  glutton 
in  the  mud  of  the  Inferno,  for  "  Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die  !  is  a  proposal 
the  real  import  of  which  differs  immensely 
according  to  the  natural  taste  and  the  acquired 
judgment  of  the  guests  who  sit  at  the  table." 
Not  pleasure  but  fullness  of  life  was  Pater's 


190  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

interpretation  of  his  new  Cyrenaicism.  In  this 
connexion  it  is  very  necessary  to  read  the 
8th  and  9th  chapters  of  "  Marius,"  where  the 
author's  position  may  be  found  very  clearly 
stated  and  very  carefully  safeguarded.  Certain 
sentences  from  one  of  these  chapters  have  been 
described  as  containing  the  central  words  of  the 
book.  "  Supposing  our  days  are  indeed  but  a 
shadow,  even  so  we  may  well  adorn  and  beautify, 
in  scrupulous  self-respect,  our  souls,  and  what- 
ever our  souls  touch  upon — these  wonderful 
bodies,  these  material  dwelling-places  through 
which  the  shadows  pass  together  for  a  while, 
the  very  raiment  we  wear,  our  very  pastimes 
and  the  intercourse  of  society."  In  the  case 
of  Marius  the  holiness  of  beauty  led  him  very 
near  to  the  beauty  of  holiness  ;  and  should  it 
be  urged  that  such  a  ceaseless  introspection  as 
his  must  inevitably  hinder  any  concentration 
of  energy  upon  the  concerns  of  a  rough  work- 
a-day  world,  surely  it  may  be  pleaded  that  the 
contemplative  life  has  its  claims  as  well  as 
the  active,  and  that  to  be  is  a  virtue,  as  well  as 
to  do 

It  is  idle,  I  suppose,  to  speculate  where 
Pater's  thought  would  have  led  him  finally, 
had  not  death  intervened  at  what  was  obviously 


WALTER  PATER  191 

not  a  terminus,  but  a  jimction.  The  books 
of  his  later  years  give  indications  whither  he 
was  tending  ;  but  such  indications  are  so  wanting 
in  precision,  that  different  men  find  the  sign- 
posts to  point  in  different  directions.  These 
later  books — more  especially  "  Appreciations  " 
and  "  Greek  Studies  " — are  of  great  interest 
and  value,  but  they  forward  only  slightly 
the  main  purpose  of  this  paper.  "  The  Re- 
naissance "  and  "  Marius  the  Epicurean " 
remain  Pater's  two  most  important  contribu- 
tions to  literature  and  thought.  For  sheer 
felicity  of  verbal  beauty  he  never  quite  re- 
captured the  charm  of  his  earliest  book — 
the  dew  of  its  birth  was  of  the  womb  of  the 
morning — and  "  Marius  "  is  yet  the  most  un- 
flinching exposition  of  his  central  ideas.  As 
I  have  observed  before,  those  ideas  end — 
characteristically  enough — on  a  note  of  inter- 
rogation. But  his  reverent  and  recollected 
behaviour  at  Holy  Communion  ;  his  frequent 
attendance  at  such  churches  as  St.  Alban's, 
Holborn  ;  remarks  like  that  recorded  by  Dr. 
Creighton  as  to  the  dignity  of  the  Reserved 
Sacrament,  which  "  gave  churches  the  senti- 
ment of  a  house  where  lay  a  dead  friend  "  ; 
the  significant  dedication  of  "  Appreciations  "  ; 


192   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

his  papers  in  the  Guardian — all  these  induced 
his  friends  to  believe  that  had  he  lived 
for  a  few  years  longer  he  would  have  taken 
Orders,  and  a  small  college  living  in  the  country. 
His  assistance  at  the  services  of  such  advanced 
churches  as  St.  Alban's  need  surprise  none. 
Ritual  is  the  poetry  of  the  eye.  The  ornate- 
ness  of  ceremonial  would  possess  its  full  attrac- 
tion for  one  who  valued  the  eye  above  all  the 
other  senses,  and  to  whom,  if  Christianity 
ever  came,  it  would  certainly  appeal  in  a  precise 
and  lovely  form.  To  know,  however,  whether 
Father  Stanton's  preaching — so  dramatic,  so 
homely  and  humorsome,  yet  at  times  so  over- 
whelming— counted  for  anything  in  his  attend- 
ance, would  at  least  be  of  interest.  This 
probably  we  shall  never  learn.  Its  elements 
would  seem  calculated  to  repel  and  to  attract 
a  nature  like  Pater's  in  almost  equal  measure. 
But  the  public  testimony  of  his  intimate  friend, 
Dr.  Bussell,  as  to  Pater's  attitude  towards 
religion,  deliberately  uttered  on  the  sad 
occasion  of  his  funeral  sermon,  at  least  cannot 
be  ignored.  Perhaps  it  expresses  the  true 
truth  concerning  Pater's  secret  and  deepest 
convictions,  or  as  near  thereto  as  we  shall 
ever  arrive.    "  His  whole  life  seemed  to  me  to 


WALTER  PATER  193 

be  the  gradual  consecration  of  an  exquisite 
sense  of  beauty  to  the  highest  ends  ;  an  almost 
literally  exact  advance  through  the  stages  of 
admiration  in  the  '  Symposium,'  till  at  last 
he  reached  the  sure  haven,  the  One  Source 
of  all  that  is  fair  and  good." 


N 


AN     INTRODUCTION     TO 
WAGE'S  "ROMAN  DE  BRUT"* 


THE  little  book  introduced  by  this  pre- 
face is  a  translation  of  that  portion 
of  Wace's  "  Roman  de  Brut "  con- 
cerned with  the  story  of  King  Arthur.  I  am 
not  aware  that  any  considerable  portion 
of  the  old  churchman's  book  has  been  turned 
into  English  before.  This  is  surprising,  because 
it  is  not  only  a  curious  docimient  of  the 
IVIiddle  Ages,  but  is  of  peculiar  interest  to  all 
those — ^and  their  name  is  legion — who  admire 
"  the  noble  acts  and  worthy  achievements  " 
of  the  Christian  King.  As  the  advertisement 
to  the  "  Historic  of  King  Arthur  "  declares, 
"  all  the  honour  we  can  do  him  is  to  honour 
ourselves  in  remembrance  of  him."  The 
principal  merit  of  this  volimie,  then,  is  that  it 

*  This  IntroductioD  was  written  by  way  of  preface 
to  my  translation  of  the  "  Chronicles  of  King  Arthur," 
by  Wace,  in  the  Everyman's  Library,   but  circum- 
stances did  not  permit  of  its  appearance  there. 
195 


196   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

contains  one  of  the  very  earliest  histories  of 
the  British  hero,  and  its  appeal,  in  the  main, 
is  to  lovers  of  the  Arthurian  legend. 

Master  Wace  was  born  in  1100,  the  year  in 
which  the  Red  King  was  found  dead  by  peasants 
in  a  glade  of  the  New  Forest,  with  an  arrow 
ip  his  breast.  He  died  some  time  after  1174, 
but  the  date  of  his  death  is  unrecorded.  The 
names  of  his  parents  are  unknown,  though  his 
mother  was  a  daughter  of  Toustein,  chamber- 
lain to  Robert,  Duke  of  Normandy.  Wace's 
name  itself  is  not  exactly  unknown,  but  it 
affords  an  excellent  fighting  ground  for  scholars. 
Some  contend  that  his  first  name  was  Robert, 
and — contrary  to  the  custom  of  his  period — 
his  godparents  bestowed  on  him  two  Christian 
names  at  baptism.  Others  argue  that  he  was 
baptized  Eustace,  of  which  Wace  is  the 
diminutive.  When  experts  differ  it  seems 
safer  to  observe  with  the  character  in  Mohere, 
"  Some  people  say  yes,  others  say  no  ;  as 
for  myself  I  say  neither  the  one  nor  the  other." 
In  his  works  the  poet  refers  to  himself  as 
"  Master  Wace  "  ;  so  Master  Wace  let  him  be. 
The  facts  of  Wace's  life  we  know  somewhat 
more  fully  than  those  of  the  average  writer  of 
the  Middle  Ages.    He  was  sufficiently  desirous 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     197 

of  fame  to  put  them  down  in  black  and  white 
in  his  books.  He  was  bom,  he  tells  us,  in  the 
Isle  of  Jersey,  lying  in  the  sea  towards  the 
west,  and  belonging  to  the  fief  of  Normandy. 
When  a  child  he  was  carried  to  Caen,  and  put 
to  letters.  Afterwards  he  went  to  France, 
studying  in  the  schools  for  long.  On  his 
return  from  France  he  lodged  a  great  while  in 
Caen,  and  composed  many  narrative  poems  in 
the  Romance  tongue.  These  poems  are  largely 
lost,  but  those  which  remain  deal  with  the 
lives  of  the  saints,  and  show  that  as  a  priest 
Wace  had  not  mistaken  his  vocation.  About 
this  time — ^in  rather  more  than  middle  life — ^he 
compiled  his  historical  poem,  the  "  Story  of 
Brutus,"  from  which  the  present  book  is 
derived.  This  was  completed  in  1155,  and 
dedicated  to  "  the  noble  lady,  Eleanor,  who 
was  the  high  King  Henry's  queen."  Eleanor 
came  of  a  family  in  which  the  patronage  of 
literature  was  a  tradition.  Henry  the  Second 
himself  was  a  lover  of  letters,  a  virtue  to  be 
counted  to  him  as  righteousness,  for  he  had  need 
of  every  rag.  Wace  seems  to  have  been 
fortunate  enough  to  attract  the  attention  of 
the  great.  He  was  "  reader  "  imder  Henry,  and 
the  King  also  appointed  him  to  a  prebend  at 


198   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Bayeux.  "  I  did  not  succeed  in  life  to  my 
wish,"  wrote  the  poet  plaintively,  "  by  reason 
that  I  was  never  fortunate  enough  to  find 
patrons.  From  this  I  except  King  Henry 
the  Second,  who  made  me  a  prebendary, 
and  bestowed  on  me  many  another  gift.  God 
return  them  to  his  bosom.  He  was  nephew 
of  the  first  Henry,  and  father  of  the  third. 
I  have  seen  and  known  all  these  princes."  In 
honour  of  his  sole  benefactor,  and  possibly  at 
Henry's  suggestion,  Wace  composed  his  most 
celebrated  work,  the  history  of  the  Dukes  of 
Normandy,  known  as  the  "  Roman  de  Rou." 
Then  Fortune  turned  her  wheel.  Other  singers 
came  to  Court  and  gained  the  ear  of  the  King. 
Patrons  are  no  more  constant  than  lovers. 
They  also  turn  to  the  fresher  face  and  the 
yoxmger  smile.  Wace  was  growing  old,  and 
Henry  commanded  Benedict  of  St.  Maur  to 
write  the  chronicles  of  his  ancestors.  Since  his 
voice  had  lost  the  gift  to  please,  Wace  ceased 
to  sing.  "  As  the  King  has  charged  another 
with  the  task  he  committed  to  me,  there  is 
nothing  to  do  but  to  stay  my  hand  and  keep 
silence.  In  days  gone  by  the  King  honoured 
me  greatly.  He  gave  me  much,  and  promised 
me  more.    If  he  had  granted  me  all  that  he 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     199 

promised,  I  should  be  the  luckier  man.     Here 
endeth  the  book  of  Master  Wace." 

The  "  Roman  do  Brut  "  is  the  early  history  of 
England  related  in  rhyming  octosyllables.  As 
poetry  it  has  no  very  great  distinction.  Even 
laureates  are  not  always  crowned  with  laurel ; 
and  Wace,  obviously,  is  the  historian  first,  and 
the  poet  afterwards.  His  chronicles  com- 
mence with  the  appearance  in  Britain  of 
Brutus,  whose  forefathers  fled  from  Troy.  They 
narrate  the  hero's  triumph  over  those  giants, 
who  were  the  original  possessors  of  the  land, 
and  in  a  leisurely  fashion  tell  the  legendary 
history  of  the  country  until  its  ultimate 
conquest  by  the  Saxons.  It  is  an  excellent 
and  entertaining  specimen  of  the  mediaeval 
mamier  of  writing  liistory.  Facts  and  tradi- 
tions are  mixed  up  together  in  most  admired 
confusion.  Real  people  rub  shoulders  and 
jostle  with  those  who  never  had  an  existence, 
but  who,  somehow,  are  equally  true.  It 
reminds  one  of  the  forecast  Lamb  gave  of  the 
"  Essays  of  Elia "  :  "  You  shall  soon  have 
a  tissue  of  truth  and  fiction,  impossible  to  be 
extricated,  the  interleavings  shall  be  so  delicate, 
the  partitions  perfectly  invisible."  I  know 
Wace's  method  is  not  the  modem  way  of 


200  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

considering  history.    It  is  all  very  sad  and 
bad   and   mad.    To-day   is   the   hour  of  the 
expert  and  the  fact.     History  has  ceased  to 
be  an  art,  and  is  by  way  of  becoming  a  science. 
Ours  is  a  utilitarian  age,  and  we  have  no  use 
for  fairy  tales.    Well,  as  Montaigne  observes, 
we  give  ourselves  many  headaches  to  arrive 
at   a   change   of  errors.    If  legends  are   not 
always  true,  science  is  not  infallible,  and  is 
sometimes    dull.     For    my    part    I    consider 
the   mediaeval   fashion    an   excellent   way    of 
writing  history.    Legends  and  traditions  are 
often  more  real  than  facts.    They  testify  to  the 
soul,  the  essence  of  a  fact.     If  I  am  in  error, 
many  favourite  books  of  history  support  my 
view,  so  that  I  go  astray  in  good  company. 
Wace,  at  least,  has  the  inestimable  advantage 
of  unfaihng  interest.     His  history  is  indeed  a 
romance.    It  is  full  of  entertainment,  and  of 
stories  which  are  excellent  reading,  if  perad- 
venture  not   quite  true.    The  legends   Wace 
gathered  together  from   such  various  sources 
throw  a  curious  and  unexpected  Ught  on  the 
life  and   opinions   of  the  Middle  Ages.    For 
instance,  all  students  of  that  period  are  familiar 
with  the  belief  of  the  French  that  every  English- 
man concealed  a  tail  in  his  hosen.     It  was 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     201 

among  the  most  common  insults  of  the  period 
and  many  a  little  French  boy  or  girl  has  cried, 
"  Englishmen,  hide  your  tails,"  and  ran,  when 
the  Islanders  were  abroad.  Wace  furnishes 
the  explanation.  He  tells  us  when  Augustine 
was  sent  by  Pope  Gregory  to  re-establish  a 
faith  almost  forgotten  in  the  land,  he  was 
received  courteously  by  all.  However,  there 
was  one  exception.  When  the  saint  on  his 
visitation  came  to  Dorchester,  the  folk  of 
that  city  were  either  so  attached  to  their  gods, 
or  (as  Wace  suggests)  so  tainted  with  original 
sin,  that  they  fastened  fishes'  tails  to  the  back 
of  the  preacher's  cassock.  Augustine  was 
so  occupied  about  his  sermon,  that  he  failed 
to  notice  what  had  happened,  until  the  con- 
gregation broke  into  huge  laughter.  Being 
human,  the  saint  was  deeply  mortified.  He 
prayed  to  God  to  avenge  the  dishonour  done 
to  His  servant,  and  very  speedily  a  tail  hung 
to  each  of  his  tormentors.  Not  only  tliis, 
but  their  descendants  were  afflicted  in  a  similar 
fashion,  the  sins  of  the  fathers  being  visited  on 
the  children  ;  so  that,  as  every  Frenchman  knew 
there  was  an  excellent  chance  of  an  Englishman 
liiding  a  tail  in  his  hose. 
Wace's     remarkable    compromise     between 


202   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

history  and  fiction  was  based  upon  the  labours 
of  another  ecclesiastic.  In  1148  a  Welsh  Bene- 
dictine concluded — in  its  present  form — a 
"  History  of  the  Kings  of  Britain,"  on  which 
for  many  years  he  had  been  engaged.  This 
writer,  a  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  more  generally 
known  as  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  wrote  for 
scholars  in  the  Latin  tongue.  The  sources 
of  his  inspiration  are  very  much  in  dispute,  and 
cannot  be  entered  upon  in  this  Introduction. 
His  success,  however,  was  immediate  and 
unequivocal,  for  there  is  scarcely  any  mediaeval 
book  of  which  so  many  manuscript  copies 
remain.  Wace  perceived  the  possibilities  of 
the  book,  and  proceeded  promptly  to  turn 
it  into  French  verse.  He  finished  his  poem  in 
1165,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  expressed  no 
obligation  to  his  fellow  churchman.  It  is  to 
be  feared  that  if  he  did  the  same  sort  of  thing 
to-day  on  a  similar  scale,  stern  critics  would 
describe  him  as  a  literary  thief,  and  a  plagiarist, 
together  with  other  hard  names.  Such  an- 
nexations were  not  considered  very  repre- 
hensible in  Wace's  time.  A  writer  took  his  own 
where  he  foimd  it.  The  "  Roman  de  Brut," 
moreover,  is  very  far  indeed  ftom  being  a  mere 
slavish  reproduction  of  the  "  History  of  the 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     208 

Kings  of  Britain."  Wace  added  to,  rearranged, 
and  omitted  freely  from  Geoffrey's  work.  Other 
sources  of  information  were  obviously  at  his 
disposal.  Geoffrey's  "  History  "  had  breathed 
life  into  the  dry  bones  of  monastic  chronicles, 
but  Wace  induced  them  to  move  yet  more  freely. 
It  is  true  enough  that  Geoffrey  and  Wace 
frequently  relate  the  same  incident ;  but  Wace 
looks  at  the  fact  with  the  eye  of  a  poet  or  a 
painter,  whereas  Geoffrey  is  often  contented 
with  its  bare  recital.  As  an  illustration  of  my 
meaning  compare  the  respective  versions  of 
Arthur's  passage  across  the  Channel.  The 
Welsh  Benedictine  simply  gives  us  the  scrap 
of  necessary  information.  Wace  sees  the  sailing 
of  the  fleet  with  his  eye,  and  re-creates  it  in 
his  imagination.  He  considers  not  only  the 
sailors  about  their  business,  but  also  the 
mystery  and  danger  of  the  deep  ;  and  brings 
before  his  readers,  in  perhaps  his  sincerest 
verses,  the  romance  of  the  first  forgotten 
shipman  who  put  to  sea.  If  any  should  yet 
regard  Wace  as  but  a  servile  copyist  of  his 
model,  I  would  suggest  a  further  comparison 
of  the  relation  of  the  festivities  following 
upon  Arthur's  coronation.  The  whole  de- 
scription of  this  crowning  at  Caerleon-on-Usk 


204  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

is  looked  upon — and  with  justice — as  one  of 
Geoffrey's  purple  passages.  In  Wace's  pages, 
however,  the  scene  becomes  a  priceless  and 
detailed  record  of  a  feudal  court  in  the  twelfth 
century.  In  a  series  of  brilliantly  coloured 
pictures,  there  passes  before  the  eye  a  sort  of 
cinematograph  of  the  festival.  We  assist  at 
the  banquet,  served  by  its  troop  of  fair  and 
youthful  damoiseaux,  clad  in  ermine.  We 
wonder  over  the  dresses  of  the  guests.  We 
watch  the  amusements  of  gentle  and  simple 
alike.  Our  ears  are  deafened  by  the  jongleur 
the  musician,  and  the  teller  of  tales.  Laughter 
and  quarrels  fill  the  air.  And  that  the  personal 
note  may  not  be  wanting,  the  priest  and  the 
professional  moralist  peep  out  in  the  denun- 
ciation of  dicing  introduced  by  Wace  into  his 
description,  like  a  sermon  preached  in  a  picture 
theatre.  "  Those  who  sat  to  the  dinner  in  furs, 
rose  from  the  tables  naked."  It  is  another 
illustration  of  a  previous  remark  that  in  taking 
Orders  Wace  had  not  mistaken  his  vocation  ; 
and  the  scene  is  set  so  aptly  on  the  stage,  that 
one  does  not  know  whether  to  admire  the  more 
the  zeal  of  the  preacher,  or  the  skill  of  the 
artist. 
The  hero  of  Wace's  "  Roman  de  Brut "  is 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     205 

King  Arthur  of  Britain.  Certainly  he  is  the 
hero  of  that  portion  of  the  history  now  offered 
to  the  public.  There  is  scarcely  any  other 
character  in  our  rough  island  story  so  inti- 
mately known  to  us  all.  We  speak  of  Arthiu* 
as  we  speak  of  Alfred  or  Elizabeth  or  Nelson. 
Poets  have  simg  of  his  life,  and  painters  have 
painted  his  passing.  A  whole  circle  of  modem 
writers  and  artists  and  musicians  have  devoted 
themselves  to  his  cult,  and  to  the  exploits  of 
his  knights.  Arthur  has  become  to  us  an 
allegory,  and  against  the  head  of  the  British 
chieftain  is  placed  a  nimbus  of  coloured 
dreams.  He  is  less  an  interest  than  an  ob- 
session to  the  makers  and  students  of  romance. 
The  generations  of  to-day  take  fire  from  the 
artists  of  their  time,  and  go  back — as  these 
went  back  in  their  turn — to  the  great  and 
beautiful  book  which  is  the  source  of  their 
passion  and  inspiration.  It  would  be  im- 
possible to  over-praise  the  high  name  of  Thomas 
Malory,  "  the  servant  of  Jesus,  both  day  and 
night,"  and  the  compiler  of  the  immortal 
"  Morte  ly Arthur."  He  wrote  "  when  English 
prose  was  dewy  with  its  dawn,  of  tales  of 
drivalry  already  coloured  by  the  setting  sun." 
The  Introduction  to  his  book  tells  us  that  gold 


206   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

has  its  dross,  and  the  wine  its  lees  ;  but  his 
is  gold  thrice  refined,  and  wine  of  a  perfect 
vintage.  In  the  whole  range  of  our  literature 
there  are  possibly  only  two  books,  or  three, 
which  stand  higher  than  his.  Probably  it  is 
the  finest  book  dealing  with  mediaeval  matters 
in  the  language,  and  is  to  be  preferred  before 
Chaucer — Chaucer  even.  And  yet  when  we 
ask  ourselves  what  we  really  know  of  the 
hero  of  so  many  romances,  we  can  only  add 
up  the  sum  of  our  ignorance  :  "  To-day,  as  of 
old,  Arthur  remains  but  a  shadowy  apparition, 
clothed  in  the  mists  of  legend  and  stalking 
athwart  the  path  of  history  to  distract  and 
mystify  the  sober  chronicler.  A  Melchisedec 
of  profane  history,  he  has  neither  begiiming 
of  days  nor  end  of  life." 

To  satisfy  our  cvu*iosity  we  turn  to  the  older 
books,  which  are  the  foundations  of  the 
Arthurian  legend,  and  of  these  one  of  the 
earliest  and  most  valuable  is  Wace's  "  Story  of 
Brutus."  Wace,  in  the  main,  follows  the  lines 
of  Geoffrey,  but  adds  very  materially  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  growth  of  the  legend.  The 
Prebendary  of  Bayeux  is  the  first  to  tell  us  of 
the  famous  Roimd  Table ;  and  he  gives  the 
reason    of   its    unusual    shape.    Forgetful    of 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     207 

the  modesty  of  the  perfect  knight,  some  of 
Arthur's  Court;  were  disposed  to  exalt  them- 
selves above  their  companions ;  and  the 
table  was  made  roimd  that  none  might  boast 
his  seat  was  higher  than  that  of  his  fellows. 
Again,  Wace  enlarges  the  bishop's  description 
of  Arthur's  end.  The  King  is  not  only  mortally 
wounded,  and  carried  to  Avalon  to  be  healed  of 
his  hurt,  but  he  is  yet  there,  and  the  Bretons 
await  him  to  this  day. 

But  the  differences  between  the  Latin  and 
French  versions  of  Arthur's  life  are  small 
indeed  in  comparison  with  the  differences 
between  the  early  blossom  they  unfold  and 
the  full-blown  flower  of  Malory's  book.  In 
the  early  chronicles  the  story  ends  before  it  has 
well  begun.  The  tragedy  of  the  battle  on  the 
Camel  against  Mordred  follows  immediately 
after  the  long  and  grim  struggle  with  the 
Romans,  and  all  is  over.  Lucius,  the  Roman 
Emperor,  is  slain  by  Malory  ere  a  third  of  his 
romance  is  completed.  The  remainder  of  his 
story  is  largely  occupied  by  the  loves  and 
adventures  of  Tristan  and  Lancelot,  the  greatest 
of  Arthur's  knights,  and  by  the  high  quest  of 
the  Holy  Grail.  Of  these  knights  errant,  and  of 
the  spiritual  adventure  of  the  Grail,  there  is  in 


208   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Wace  not  one  single  word.  Undoubtedly  their 
absence  is  a  serious  drawback,  for  it  is  pre- 
cisely with  these  persons  and  matters,  and 
with  those  things  of  which  they  are  the  symbol, 
that  the  modern  imagination  is  concerned. 
Since  Tristan  is  not,  and  Lancelot  is  not,  it 
follows  Isoude  is  absent  also  from  this  book,  and 
that  Guenevere,  Arthur's  queen,  has  but  the 
shadow  of  her  fatal  beauty.  "  The  romance 
and  danger  zone  of  sex  "  are  reduced  in  these 
pages  to  a  minimima.  Yet  these  romances 
were  on  the  tongues  of  the  singers  at  the  very 
time  Wace  composed  his  poem.  Twenty 
years  later  the  stories  of  Lancelot  and  Guene- 
vere, and  of  Tristan  and  Isoude,  were  presented 
in  a  literary  form  by  Chrestien  de  Troyes  and 
Marie  de  France.  However,  although  the 
two  most  famous  knights  of  Arthur's  Round 
Table  are  not  to  be  met  with  in  these  pages, 
other  knights,  scarcely  less  celebrated,  remain. 
Though  much  is  taken,  much  abides.  Gawain 
Kay,  Bedevere,  and  Bors  play  their  parts  in 
the  battles  like  men.  They  gain,  even,  by 
detachment  from  their  more  arresting  comrades, 
for  they  serve  no  longer  as  foils  and  shadows 
to  the  more  marvellous  deeds  and  shining 
qualities  of  their  fellows.    Gawain  is  no  longer 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     209 

light,  nor  Kay  grudging  ;  and  the  friendship 
of  steward  and  cupbearer,  in  life  and  death, 
should  be  added  to  the  long  gallery  of  friend- 
ships between  man  and  man.  Above  all,  Wace 
retains  for  us  the  early  days  of  Merlin,  the 
typical  seer  and  enchanter — together  with 
Virgil — of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  Malory,  Merlin 
is  the  ancient  sage  from  his  introduction  to  his 
death.  His  story  is  begiui  at  the  end.  Wace 
relates  the  adventure  of  his  birth  and  youth, 
BO  that  we  understand  why  the  wizard  was 
permitted  to  know  so  much  that  was  hidden 
from  ordinary  mortals. 

Cleared  from  the  later  accretions  of  legend, 
released  from  association  with  knights  more 
appealing  than  himself,  Arthur  stands  out  in 
the  "  Roman  de  Brut "  emphatically  as  its 
hero,  and  every  inch  a  man.  His  is  the  master 
mind  to  organize  the  kingdom,  and  to  conduct 
campaigns.  Gawain,  Kay,  and  Bedevere  are 
excellent  lieutenants  and  men  of  their  hands, 
but  Arthur  is  the  captain  and  the  chief.  It 
is  Arthur  who  breaks  the  power  of  Rome.  It 
is  Arthur  who  drives  the  Saxon  heathenry 
from  the  land  ;  and  it  is  very  imderstandable 
why  a  book  intended  for  the  delectation  of 
Norman  nobles  and  gentlefolk  should  make 

o 


210   PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

such  a  feature  of  his  deeds.  Arthur's  adven  -> 
tures  serve  as  the  theme  of  these  chronicles. 
There  are  no  other  knights  errant  to  detract 
from  his  fame.  He  is  the  rescuer  and  avenger 
of  distressed  damsels,  and  he  the  slayer  of 
giants.  The  stirring  episode  of  the  avenging 
of  Helen  upon  the  body  of  Riton  will  be  in 
the  memory  of  any  reader  of  Wace.  Giants, 
indeed,  occupy  a  considerable  amount  of  his 
attention.  Does  any  reader  marvel  over 
the  wickedness  and  malice  of  that  evil  race  ? 
Let  him  consider  their  origin,  and  refrain.  In 
the  rich  land  of  Syria  there  was  once  a  noble 
king,  and  mighty,  and  a  man  of  great  renown, 
called  Diocletian.  This  king  spoused  a  gentle 
damsel,  wonderfully  fair,  named  Labana. 
She  loved  him,  as  was  but  right ;  so  that  he 
gat  upon  her  thirty-three  daughters.  These 
maidens,  when  they  were  of  nubile  age,  were 
become  so  fair  that  it  was  a  marvel.  Diocletian 
therefore  made  a  royal  feast,  and  bade  that  all 
the  kings  who  held  of  him  should  come  to  his 
banquet,  together  with  their  admirals,  princes, 
dukes,  and  noble  chivalry.  He  also  married 
his  thirty-three  daughters,  right  richly,  imto 
thirty-three  kings,  that  were  lords  of  great 
honour,    at    that    solemnity.    It    afterwards 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     211 

befell  that  these  ladies  waxed  so  stout  and 
stem,  that  they  held  their  lords  of  little  price, 
but  had  of  them  scorn  and  despite,  and  would 
not  do  their  will,  but  rather  their  own,  in 
divers  manners.  The  kings  chastised  them 
with  fair  speech  and  behests,  warning  them 
in  fair  fashion,  upon  all  love  and  friendship,  to 
amend  their  condition,  but  it  was  all  for  nought. 
The  thirty-three  kings,  therefore,  upon  a  time 
and  oftentimes  beat  their  wives  ;  but  of  such 
condition  were  they  that  for  fair  speech  and 
warning  they  did  the  worse,  and  for  beating 
very  much  worse.  Now  on  a  day  when  all 
these  lords  and  ladies  were  on  a  visit  to 
Diocletian  the  king,  he  spake  to  his  daughters 
of  their  wickedness  and  cruelty,  and  reproved 
them  piteously.  The  ladies  met  together 
in  a  chamber,  and  Albin,  the  eldest  of  them 
all,  said  to  her  sisters,  "  My  fair  sisters,  our 
husbands  have  complained  to  our  father  upon 
us,  wherefore  my  coimsel  is,  that  this  night, 
when  they  are  abed,  all  we  with  one  consent 
cut  their  throats,  that  we  may  be  in  peace 
of  them."  The  ladies  consented  and  granted 
unto  her  counsel,  and  when  night  was  come, 
and  their  lords  were  asleep,  they  cut  their 
husbands'  throats,  and  slew  them  all.    When 


212  PREFERENCES  IN  LITERATURE 

Diocletian  heard  of  this  thing  he  was  hugely 
wroth.  He  put  his  daughters  on  a  ship,  and 
delivered  them  victuals  for  half  a  year.  He 
set  this  ship  adrift,  and  so  long  it  sailed  on  the 
sea  that  at  the  last  it  came  to  an  isle  that 
was  all  wilderness.  The  sisters  went  from  out 
the  ship,  and  found  neither  man  nor  woman  nor 
childjbut  only  wild  beasts  of  divers  kinds.  When 
their  store  was  spent  they  fed  them  with  herbs 
and  fruits  in  their  season,  and  lived  as  best  they 
might.  After  this  they  ate  flesh  of  certain 
animals,  so  that  they  became  fat,  and  for 
loneliness  bewailed  the  husbands  whom  they 
had  slain.  When  the  Devil,  who  wends  through- 
out all  countries,  perceived  this  thing,  he  came 
into  the  land  of  Albion,  and  had  to  do  with 
these  women,  so  that  they  conceived,  and 
brought  forth  monsters,  who  were  named  by 
various  names.  In  this  manner  horrible 
giants  were  born. 

Somewhat  in  this  fashion  an  old  chronicler 
relates  the  coming  of  giants  ;  and  with  the 
knowledge  of  their  unfortunate  parentage  in 
our  minds,  how  can  any  be  surprised  at  the 
mahce  and  wickedness  of  that  dreadful  race, 
whether  called  Gogmagog,  Dinabuc,  or  Riton. 
Women  should  really  be  more  careful  in  the 


WAGE'S  "  ROMAN  DE  BRUT  "     213 

choice  of  the  father  of  their  children  ;  then  had 
this  favoiired  land  of  Albion  been  plagued 
the  less  by  their  brood. 

To  all  who  love  deeds  of  daring,  ancient 
history,  or  legends  of  Arthur  and  of  his  Table, 
the  portion  here  translated  of  Wace's  "  Roman 
de  Brut  "  should  have  its  interest. 


PRINTED  AT 

THE  BALLANTYNE  PBESS 

LONDON 


-b^i^if 


/\  BO(  UC  SOUTHERN  REGK3NAL  UBRAHY  FAOUTY 


P  P  FT  F  F  R  1i      illiliillllllllllll 
riviLr  rLivj^      a  000717823  9 

LITERATURE 

BY 

EUGENE    MASON 


CONTENTS 

M.  Anatole  France  and  the  Complete 
Sceptic 

On  the  Short  Story,  and  Two  Modern 
Exemplars  (Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling 
AND  Guy  de  Maupassant) 

The  Poet  as  Artist  (Jose-Maria  de 
Heredia)  with  some  Translations 

The  Poet  as  Mystic  (Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats) 

Two  Christian  Poets  (Christina  G. 
Rossetti  and  Paul  Verlaine) 

A  Catholic  Poet  (Francis  Thompson 
and  his  Legend) 

Walter  Pater,  and  some  Phases  of  De- 
velopment 

An  Introduction  to  Wace's  "  Roman 
de  Brut  " 


ONE  DOLLAR   TWENTY-FIVE  CENTS  NE1 


^; 


